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Bayne evasively. “For heaven’s sake, Holly, don’t look at me like that! It isn’t very much. But it will start you like a lady, if we are careful.”
    Holly gave her mother a long careful glance, but Mrs. Bayne was pouring herself a second cup of tea. She was of an old school, and so as she drank it, she held her little finger out and delicately curved. A slight colour came into the girl’s face as she noticed it.
    They had set the wedding for two months ahead. Warrington knew that from the newspapers, for they did not tell him. In a way he had lost ground recently rather than gained it; he had never again been so close to them as just after Margaret’s attempt at suicide.
    If he laid Holly’s aloofness to resentment, nobody could blame him. If there was a fear of her own weakness in quiet dignity toward him, who was to tell him that? How could he know that since that day in the kitchen he had occupied most of her thoughts? Poor Holly, wearing her engagement ring and his kiss on the same hand!
    There were a good many times when he decided to pack up and clear out, and as many others when he decided to stay and see it through. He would sit in his chair or walk about the room, arguing pro and con, and sometimes he would simply sit and brood.
    Once or twice, sitting thus, he heard stealthy footsteps in the attic overhead. The first time he heard them he got up and went out into the hall, only to meet Mrs. Bayne there with some old lace over her arm and a candle in her hand. She had showed it to him with pride.
    “It was on my wedding gown,” she said, “and now it is for Holly. It is really lovely.”
    After that the sounds in the attic were like bugle calls to battle for his bitter thoughts.
    On one such evening, however, following the sounds Warrington heard a light knock on his door. Mrs. Bayne was outside, and as he opened the door she held her finger to her lips. She slipped into the room and closed the door.
    “I am so sorry to trouble you,” she said cautiously, “but I wonder if you will do me a favour?”
    “Anything I can,” he said politely, and eyed her. He did not see her, really; all he saw was a ruthlessly genteel person who was not to be let down at any cost. But he did see her hands. They were soft and white and unsullied by any labour.
    “I so seldom go out,” she said, in a breathless sort of voice. “I dare say I should. I often think I will go for a walk, but somehow I don’t. And I have a bond here. Rather a large one, and I should have it sold. I know so little about business, but I—it is for a thousand dollars.”
    She opened it out. He saw that her hands were shaking, but he laid it to the stairs.
    “I have not told my daughter that I am selling it,” she went on. “She might worry. But just now, with so many fresh expenses! And you sell bonds, don’t you?”
    “When I get the chance,” he said, gravely smiling down at her. “If you care to trust this to me I’ll see what I can do. Of course,” he added, to put her more at ease, “I may vanish with it! One never knows.”
    She hastened to reassure him, her childish blue eyes turned up to his, her relaxed white throat quivering. She was oddly emotional; he had never thought of her as emotional. For the first time he understood why Holly felt she could not let her down; why, she was like a child; her airs and poses were those of a little girl playing at being a lady. In spite of himself his heart warmed toward her.
    “If it just isn’t too much trouble,” she said. “And, of course, any commission—”
    “It’s absolutely no trouble,” he told her, “and there’s no question of any commission between friends.”
    He gave her again his grave smile, and she went out.
    It was only when she had gone, stealing down the stairs as carefully as she had come up, that he stood for some time looking at the bond in his hand. It was almost farcical, his having it. And to-morrow he would bring it back in neat tens and twenties,