them. A rich man like Mr. Cord wouldn't like that."

Ben laughed. "How would you like me to bring you home a lovely heiress
of my own?" he said.

She took a thread off his coat. "Only don't let her come interfering
in my kitchen," she said, and hurried him away. He had a good deal of
courage, but he had not enough to tell Nora he was going to Newport to
stop her darling's marriage.

The Newport boat gets to Newport about two o'clock in the morning, and
experienced travelers, if any such choose this method of approach, go
on to Fall River and take a train back to Newport, arriving in time
for a comfortable nine-o'clock breakfast. But Ben was not experienced,
and he supposed that when you took a boat for Newport and reached
Newport the thing to do was to get off the boat.

It had been a wonderful night on the Sound, and Ben had not been to
bed, partly because, applying late on a Friday evening, he had not
been able to get a room, but partly because the moon and the southerly
breeze and the silver shores of Long Island and the red and white
lighthouses had been too beautiful to leave. Besides, he had wanted to
think out carefully what he was going to say to his brother.

To separate a man from the woman he loves, however unwisely, has some
of the same disadvantages as offering a bribe--one respects the other
person less in proportion as one succeeds. What, Ben said to himself,
could he urge against a girl he did not know? Yet, on the other hand,
if he had known her, his objections would have seemed regrettably
personal. Either way, it was difficult to know what to say. He