action had checked the pernicious attacks, and he became a hero
among men and women. After that night there was no point to "The
Censor's" pen. Monty's first qualms of apprehension were swept
away when Colonel Drew himself hailed him the morning after the
encounter and, in no unmeasured terms, congratulated him upon his
achievement, assuring him that Barbara and Mrs. Drew approved,
although they might lecture him as a matter of form.

But on this morning, as he lay in his bed, Monty was thinking
deeply and painfully. He was confronted by a most embarrassing
condition and he was discussing it soberly with himself. "I've
never told her," he said to himself, "but if she doesn't know my
feeling she is not as clever as I think. Besides, I haven't time
to make love to her now. If it were any other girl I suppose I'd
have to, but Babs, why, she must understand. And yet--damn that
Duke!"

In order to woo her properly he would be compelled to neglect
financial duties that needed every particle of brain-energy at his
command. He found himself opposed at the outset by a startling
embarrassment, made absolutely clear by the computations of the
night before. The last four days of indifference to finance on one
side, and pampering the heart on the other, had proved very
costly. To use his own expression, he had been "set back" almost
eight thousand dollars. An average like that would be ruinous.

"Why, think of it," he continued. "For each day sacrificed to
Barbara I must deduct something like twenty-five hundred dollars.
A long campaign would put me irretrievably in the hole; I'd get so
far behind that a holocaust couldn't put me even. She can't expect