on. "Now that I am thirty-one, it is the new face that charms."

"You did give up a very particular friend for me," Gordon remarked
teasingly. "I only learned recently that you were once engaged to
Mr. Morris King, your faithful attorney, and that you threw him
over for an athletic parson with blond hair and a smile, yet I
have never chided you about this little secret. Mr. King is still
a romantic bachelor. He has not been initiated into the joys of a
Sunday sermon at 10 P. M., with his wife in the pulpit. He has much
to live for."

Her lips quivered and her eyes grew dim.

"Come, come, my dear; you know that I love you and that I am
faithful to you. But such words and scenes as these may destroy
the tenderest love at last. Words, even, are deeds."

"How philosophical! Quite like one of the epigrams of your chum,
Mark Overman, of whose cruel tongue you're so fond. I wonder you
don't make Mr. Overman a deacon in the new order of your church."

Gordon sank back into the chair and thoughtfully shaded his brow
with his hand, his face drawn into deep lines of weariness.

When she saw the look of pain in his face her eyes softened.

"What I fear of you, Frank, is not your intention, but your performance.
You mean well, but you never could resist a pretty woman."

"In a sense, no. If I could, I never would have married."