there as he stood behind her!

The swift thought that disaster had shaken his brain
loomed up and possessed her. She flung herself out
of the chair, and, wheeling, seized its back and drew
it between them as she faced him. It was with a stare
of frank dismay that she beheld him grinning at her.

"What"--she began, stammering--"What is the matter, Joel?"

He permitted himself the luxury of smiling blankly
at her for a further moment. Then he tossed his head,
and laughed abruptly.

"Sit down, old girl," he adjured her. "Try and hold
yourself together, now--to hear some different kind of news.
I've been playing it rather low down on you, for a fact.
Instead of my being smashed, it's the other way about."

She continued to confront him, with a nervous clasp
upon the chair-back. Her breathing troubled her as she
regarded him, and tried to take in the meaning of his words.

"Do you mean--you've been lying to me about--about
your Company?" she asked, confusedly.

"No--no--not at all," he replied, now all genial heartiness.
"No--what I told you was gospel truth--but I was taking
a rise out of you all the same." He seemed so unaffectedly
pleased by his achievement in kindly duplicity that she