talk against it. Confound it all, you can't go about smashing ideals
for the people you love best!"

"Rich?" queried Gantry.

"Oh, no. Her father has the chair of paleontology, and never gets within
speaking distance of the present century. The mother has been dead many
years."

"And you say the girl has the Hull House ambition?"

"The social-betterment ambition. It's an ideal, and I can't smash it.
You wouldn't smash it, either, Dick."

"No; I guess that's so. If I were in your fix I should probably do what
you are doing--say 'Good-by, fond heart,' and hie me away to the
forgetful edge of things. And it's simply astonishing how quickly the
good old sage-brush hills will help a man to forget everything that ever
happened to him before he ducked."

Blount winced a little at that. It was no part of his programme to
forget Patricia. Indeed, for twenty-four hours, or the waking moiety of
that period, he had been assuring himself of the utter impossibility of
anything remotely approaching forgetfulness. This thought made him
instantly self-reproachful; regretful for having shown a sort of
disloyalty by opening the door of the precious and sacred things, even
to so good a friend as Dick Gantry; and from regretting to amending was
never more than a step for Evan Blount. There were plenty of
reminiscences to be threshed over, and Blount brought them forward so
tactfully that Gantry hardly knew it when he was shouldered away from