the price set on the lady slippers. "Leave them where people may enjoy
them until I call."

As he turned, another man was inquiring about the orchids; he too
preferred the slippers; but when he was told they were taken, he had
wanted the moccasins all the time, anyway. The basket was far more
attractive. He refused delivery, returning to his waiting car smiling over
the flowers. He also saw a vision of the woman into whose sated life he
hoped to bring a breath of change with the wonderful gift. He saw the
basket in her hands, and thrilled in anticipation of the favours her
warmed heart might prompt her to bestow upon him.

In the mists of early morning the pink orchids surrounded by rosemary and
ladies' tresses had glowed and gleamed from the top of a silvery moss
mound four feet deep, under a big tamarack in a swamp, through the bog of
which the squaw plunged to her knees at each step to uproot them. In the
evening glow of electricity, snapped from their stems, the beautiful
basket untouched, the moccasins lay on the breast of a woman of fashion,
while with every second of contact with the warmth of her body, they
drooped lower, until clasped in the arms of her lover, they were quite
crushed, then flung from an automobile to be ground to pulp by passing
wheels.

The slippers had a happier fate. Douglas Bruce carried them reverently. He
was sure he knew the swamp in which they grew. As he went his way, he held
the basket, velvet-white, in strong hands, swaying his body with the
motion of the car lest one leaf be damaged. When he entered the hall, down
the stairs came Leslie Winton.

"Why Douglas, I wasn't expecting you," she said.