brown eyes opposite. ``But what's the use?
Everybody knows it--that knows us. Billy herself
got so she took it as a matter of course--and
refused as a matter of course, too; just as she
would refuse a serving of apple pie at dinner, if
she hadn't wanted it.''

``Apple pie!'' scouted Arkwright.

Calderwell shrugged his shoulders.

``My dear fellow, you don't seem to realize it,
but for the last six months you have been assisting
at the obsequies of a dead romance.''

``Indeed! And is it--buried, yet?''

``Oh, no,'' sighed Calderwell, cheerfully. ``I
shall go back one of these days, I'll warrant, and
begin the same old game again; though I will
acknowledge that the last refusal was so very
decided that it's been a year, almost, since I received
it. I think I was really convinced, for a while,
that--that she didn't want that apple pie,'' he
finished with a whimsical lightness that did not
quite coincide with the stern lines that had come
to his mouth.

For a moment there was silence, then Calderwell
spoke again.