Margaret Gannion's hands shut on a fold of her skirt.

"She loves him better than she loves her life; but she loves right better than either."

"And what is right?"

"I am not sure," she confessed weakly. "I can't seem to a.n.a.lyze it at all. What do you think?"

"That she ought to be told."

"What good will it do?"

"At least, it will put her on her guard."

"Against what? From your own showing, it is like fighting an unseen enemy. One never knows when or where it will come. She will only be put under a terrible nervous strain, faced by a fear that will haunt her, day and night. Besides, she might break the engagement. Have you thought of that?"

"It was of that I was thinking. She ought to have the facts, and be allowed to face the alternatives before it is too late. Miss Gannion,"

he turned upon her sharply; "can't you realize the pain it is to me to be saying this? I love Lorimer, love him as one man rarely loves another. Perhaps I love him all the more for his lack of strength. But that is no reason I should let him make havoc of a girl's whole life, perhaps of other lives to come. Miss Dane loves him; moreover, she is very proud. She is bound to suffer keenly on both scores."

"Then you think--"

"That the trouble is likely to increase."

"And, if she breaks her engagement to him?"

"That it will increase all the faster. She has a strong hold on him."

"And you would run the risk of loosing this hold, when you know the danger to your friend?"

"Yes, when I see the danger to Miss Dane."

Miss Gannion's hands unclasped, and she looked up at him with the pitiful, drooping lips of a frightened child. Like Thayer, she too loved Lorimer.

"It is terrible, Mr. Thayer. I can see no way out of the trouble; it stands on either side of the path. But do you think she could hold him, if she were to try?"

"It is an open question. Lorimer is weak; but I am not sure how strong she is, nor how patient. If she could steady him and forgive him ninety-nine times, it is possible that, on the hundredth, she would have nothing to forgive. But that is asking too much of a woman, that she should sacrifice her pride and her hope to her loyalty and her love."

"I think Beatrix would do it."

"Perhaps. At least, though, she ought to have the right to choose for herself."

Once more Miss Gannion mastered herself.

"I am not sure. You make the alternatives certain ruin and possible salvation. I should cling to the chance."

"And take the responsibility of silence?"

"It is a responsibility; but I should a.s.sume it for the present. What we should say to her could never be unsaid. It might do good; it might do terrible harm. It is possible that the truth may come to her in some other way. I should certainly prefer that it might."

He bent over the fire for a moment. Then he straightened up and threw back his shoulders, like a man relieved of the burden of a heavy load.

"Then that is your final advice?" he asked slowly.

She made answer just as slowly,--

"Mr. Thayer, I am growing older than I used to be, and things don't look quite so plain to me as they did once. Motives mix themselves more, and I am not so ready to put my finger on my neighbor's nerve. If I were in your place, I--rather think I should say my prayers, and then wait."

CHAPTER SEVEN

"I believe I should hate to have Mr. Thayer fall in love with me," Sally observed thoughtfully.

"I wouldn't worry about it yet," Bobby said unkindly. "He yawned twice, last night, while he was talking to you."

Sally's answer was prompt.

"Yes, we were discussing you."

"Why didn't you call me over to give you some points? It is the only subject upon which I can speak with authority. But just think what a lover Thayer would make, troubadouring around under windows!"

Sally counted swiftly.

"There are nineteen families in our hotel, Bobby, and thirteen of them have marriageable daughters. Imagine the creaking of cas.e.m.e.nts, when Mr.

Thayer warbled, 'Open the window to me, Love!' Troubadours will do for the country; in town, one can heed only the impersonal strains of the hurdy-gurdy. But really--"

"Yes?" Bobby's accent was encouraging.

"If Mr. Thayer should fall in love and get engaged, what could the girl call him? His name doesn't lend itself easily to endearments."

"His mother ought to have thought of that, when she named him."

"It is a case of visiting the father's sins upon the child of the sixth generation. He is only Volume Seven in the series of Cotton Mathers."

Bobby plunged his fists into his pockets.

"That is a respectable custom; but a mighty stupid one. A fellow oughtn't to be labelled like one of a cla.s.s. Might as well catalogue children, and done with it, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and so on through the list of Thayers. Then, when he came to years of discretion, he could pick for himself. Do you suppose I would have been Bobby, if I had been consulted?"

"What then?" Beatrix asked, pausing in her talk with Lorimer.

"Demosthenes Alphonso, of course. That's something worth while."

"Demosthenes Alphonso Dane. D. A. D." Sally commented irrepressibly.

Then she swept across the room and, parting the curtains, peeped out between them. "Beatrix, the Philistines be upon you! Here comes Mrs.

Lloyd Avalons. Oh, why was I the first to come? As a rule, I believe in the rotation of callers as implicitly as I do in the rotation of crops.

Bobby, you came next. How long do you mean to stay?"

"Till the almonds are gone, or till Beatrix turns me out," he replied imperturbably.