The next morning Patsie persistently avoided him. Instead of joining the skaters on the pond, she went off for a long excursion across country on her skis, followed by her faithful bodyguard of Romp and three different varieties of terrier. Bojo came upon her suddenly quite by accident on her return. She was coming up the great winding stairway, not like a whirlwind, but heavily, her head down and thoughtful, heedless of the dogs that tumbled over each other for the privilege of reaching her hand. At the sight of him she stopped instinctively, blushing red before she could master her emotions.

He came to her directly, holding out his hand, overcome by the thought of the pain he had unwittingly caused her, seeking the proper words, quite helpless and embarrassed. She took his hand and looked away, her lips trembling.

"I'm so glad to see you," he said stupidly. "We're pals, good pals, you know, and nothing can change that."

She nodded without looking at him, slowly withdrawing her hand. He rushed on heedlessly, imbued with only one idea—to let her know at all costs how much her opinion of him mattered.

"Don't think badly of me, Patsie. I wouldn't bring you any sorrow for all the world. What you think means an awful lot to me." He hesitated, fearing to say too much, and then blurted out: "Don't turn against me, Drina, whatever you do."

She turned quickly at the name, looked at him steadily a moment, and shook her head, trying to smile.

"Never, Bojo—never that— I couldn't," she said, and hurriedly went up the stairs.

A lump came to his throat; something wildly, savagely delirious, seemed to be pumping inside of him. He could not go back to the others at once. He felt suffocated, in a whirl, with the need of mastering himself, of bringing all the unruly, triumphant impulses that were rioting through his brain back to calm and discipline.

At luncheon, Patsie proposed an excursion in cutters, claiming Mr. Boskirk as her partner, and with a feeling almost of guilt he seconded the proposal, understanding her desire to throw him with Doris. DeLancy and Gladys Stone started first, after taking careful instructions for the way to their rendezvous at Simpson's cider-mill—instructions which every one knew they had not the slightest intention of following. Boskirk, with the best face he could muster, went off with Patsie, who disappeared like a runaway engine, chased by a howling brigade of dogs, while Bojo and Doris followed presently at a sane pace.

"We sha'n't see Gladys and Fred," said Doris, laughing. "No matter. They're engaged!"

"As though that were news to me."

"Did he tell you?"

"I guessed. Last night in the conservatory." He added with a sudden feeling of good will: "Gladys is much nicer than I thought, really."

"She's awfully in love. I'm so glad."

"When will it be announced?"

"Next week."

"Heaven be praised!"

In a desire to come to a more intimate sharing of confidences he told her of his fears.

"Louise Varney, a vaudeville actress!" said Doris, with a figurative drawing in of her skirts.

"Oh, there's nothing against her," he protested, "excepting perhaps her chaperone! Only Fred's susceptible, you know—terribly so—and easily led."

"Yes, but people don't marry such persons—you can get infatuated and all that—but you don't marry them!" she said indignantly. She shrugged her shoulders. "It's all right to be—to be a man of the world, but not that!"

He hesitated, afraid of going further, of finding a sudden disillusionment in the worldly attitude her words implied. A certain remorse, a feeling of loyalty betrayed impelled him on, as though all danger could be avoided by forever settling his future. Their conversation by degrees assumed a more intimate turn, until at length they came to speak of themselves.

"Doris, I have something to ask you," he said, plunging in miserably. "We have never really—formally been engaged, have we?"

"The idea! Of course we have," she said, laughing. "It's only you who wouldn't have it announced because—because you were too proud or some other ridiculous reason!"

"Well, now I want it announced." He met her glance and added: "And I want you to announce at the same time the date of the wedding."

He had said it—irrevocably decided for the path of conscience and loyalty, and it seemed to him as though a great load had shifted from his shoulders.

"Bojo! Do you mean—now, soon!"

"Just that. Doris, when this deal is settled up—and I'll know this week—I'm going to have close on to two hundred thousand—on my own hook, not counting what I'll get from the pool. I've plunged. I've put every cent I had in it or could borrow," he said hastily, avoiding an explanation of just what he had done. "I've risked everything on the turn—"

"But supposing something went wrong?"

"It won't! This week, we're going to hammer Pittsburgh & New Orleans down below thirty: I know. The point is now—when that's all safe—I want you to marry me."

"I have a quarter of a million in my own name. Father gave us each that three years ago."

He hesitated.

"Do you need that very much? I'd rather you'd start—"

"Oh, Bojo, why? If you've got that, why shouldn't I?"

He wavered before this argument.

"I would rather, Doris, we started on less, on what I myself have got. I've thought it over a good deal. I think it would mean a great deal to us to start out that way—to have me feel you were by my side, helping me. It is pride, but pride means all to a man, Doris."

"If I only used it for dresses and jewels—just for myself?" she said after a moment. "You want me to look as beautiful as the other women, and we aren't going to drop out of society, are we?"

"No. Keep it then," he said abruptly.

"I won't take a cent from father," she said virtuously, and was furious when he laughed.

"And you are willing to give up all the rest, now, and be just plain Mrs. Crocker?"

She nodded, watching him askance.

"When?"

"In May at the close of the social season—butterfly."

He had begun with a hunger in his heart to reach depths in hers, and he ended with laughter, with a feeling of being defrauded.

They stopped at Simpson's for a cool drink of cider and were on again, passing through wintry forests, with green Christmas trees against the creamy stretches where rabbit paths ran into dark entanglements. All at once they were in the open again, sweeping through a sudden factory village, Jenkinstown, stagnant with the exhaustion of the Sunday's rest.

"There, aren't you glad you didn't begin there?" she said gaily, with a nick of the whip toward the grim gray line of barracks that crowded against the street.

"You never would have married me then," he said.

"Oh, ask me anything but to be poor!" she said, shuddering.

"She might at least have lied," he thought grimly. He gazed with curiosity at this glimpse of factory life, at the dulled faces of women, wrapped in gay shawls, staring at them; at the sluggish loiterers on the corners, and the uncleanly hordes of children, who cried impertinently after them, recalling his father's words:—"a great mixed horde to be turned into intelligent, useful American citizens!" Squalid and hopelessly commonplace it seemed to him, cruelly devoid of pleasure or joy in the living. But such as these had placed him where he was, with an opportunity to turn in a year what in the lifetime of generations they could never approach.

The spectacle affected Doris like a disagreeable smell.

"I hate to think such people exist," she said, frowning.

"But they do exist," he said slowly.

"Yes, but I don't want to think of it. Heavens, to be poor like that!"

"It's late; we'd better be going back," he said.

They came back enveloped in the falling dusk, Doris running on gaily, quite delighted now at the prospect of their coming marriage, making a hundred plans for the ordering of the establishment, debating the question of an electric or an open car to start with, the proper quarter to seek an apartment, and the number of servants, while Bojo, silently, rather grim, listened, thinking of the look which would come into some one's eyes when their decision was told.

At the porte-cochÈre Gladys and Patsie came rushing out with frightened faces. Fred had caught the last train home after a call from New York. Bojo, with a sinking feeling, seized the note he had left for him.

Fred.

"Can I make the 6:42 at Jenkinstown?" he cried to the groom.

"Just about, sir."

"Jump in."

"I'm so frightened! Telephone at once!" He heard Doris cry, and, hardly heeding her he looked about vacantly. Then something was pressed in his hand, and Patsie's voice was sounding in his ears. "Here's your bag. I packed it. Keep up your courage, Bojo!"

"Patsie, you're a dear. Thank you. All right now!" He took her hands, met her clear brave eyes, and sprang into the sleigh. A terrible sickening dread came over him, an unreasoning superstitious dread. He felt ruin and worse, cold and damp in the air about him, ruin inevitable from the first, the bubble's collapse as he waved a hasty farewell and shot away in the race across the night.