most beautiful girls he had ever seen.

He was seized with a sudden sharp pang of jealousy and caught her in his
arms roughly, his gray eyes almost as black as hers.

"Tell me," he exclaimed, and the new fear almost choked him, "does any
other man interest you--the least little bit?"

She stared at him and then burst into the most natural laugh he had heard
from her for months. "That is simply too funny to talk about."

"But I am able to give you so little of my time. Working or tired out at
night--letting you go out so much alone--but I haven't the heart to
insist that you yawn over a book, while I am shut up here, or too fagged
to talk even to you. Life is becoming a tragedy for business men--if
they've got it in them to care for anything else."

"Well, don't add to the tragedy by cultivating jealousy. I've told you
that I am perfectly willing to give up Society and sit like Dora holding
your pens--or filling your fountain pen--no, you dictate. What chance has
a woman in a business man's life?"

"None, alas, except to look beautiful and be happy. Are you that?--the
last I mean, of course!"

She nestled closer to him and laughed again. "More so than ever. To be
frank you have completed my happiness by being jealous. I have wondered
sometimes if it were a compliment--your being so sure of me."

"That's my idea of love."