"You aren't like yourself to-night, Porter."

He put one hand on her shoulder and stood looking down at her. "How
can I be? What am I going to do when I leave you, Mary, and face the
fact that you don't care--that I'm no more to you--than that fellow up
there in the--tower?"

He straightened himself, then with the madness of his earlier mood upon
him, he said one thing more before he left her:

"Contrary Mary, if I weren't such a coward, and you weren't
so--wonderful--I'd kiss you now--and _make_ you--care----"




CHAPTER IV

_In Which a Little Bronze Boy Grins in the Dark; and in Which Mary
Forgets That There is Any One Else in the House._


Up-stairs among his books Roger Poole heard Mary come in. With the
curtains drawn behind him to shut out the light, he looked down into
the streaming night, and saw Porter drive away alone.

Then Mary's footstep on the stairs; her raised voice as she greeted
Aunt Isabelle, who had waited up for her. A door was shut, and again
the house sank into silence.