"What shall we do this evening?"

"I shall be studying."

"Oh, rot; don't work so hard."

It was morning in mid-May and Dick Brown was standing in the hallway of Mrs. Pickens' boarding-house, his hat set back on his head, turning for the last word with Hertha before he left for his day's task. It was a grief to him that they did not leave together; but, though she finished breakfast when he did, and had but a few minutes leeway beyond his time of departure, she was never ready when the minute came that he must go. So he stopped this morning to ask his question, knowing the answer, since he had received it the night before, but anxious to hold the young girl in conversation before he turned into the engrossing world of business that drove her from his thoughts. And yet, even when he was most concentrated on some perplexing detail associated with the handling of fancy trimmings, she would be back in his mind, far back where he might not turn to her and yet where, when the hour came that released him from the bondage of the city's trade, she was present—her brown eyes, to his fancy, looking at him with more favor than they had yet shown.

"Well, good-by," he said, grasping the doorknob.

"Good-by," she answered, and turned upstairs to her room.

Whirled through the city and over the bridge, Dick tried to obliterate the image of the girl he loved and to turn to schemes of business. He was well aware that he had not yet caught her fancy, that she was not in the least in love with him, but he reckoned on his staying powers and on the fortune that some day he meant to lay at her feet. Any one so alone in the world as she, and she seemed singularly alone, must need a protector; and if he could only be patient and work diligently the time might come when she would accept a home filled with every conceivable thing to use, lovely as the "House Beautiful" rooms exhibited in the department stores, and where, when she had wandered through the many chambers and corridors, she would accept the man who stood upon the threshold eager to bring this, and more, of comfort and luxury and watchful care into her life. So he sat tense in his seat (he sometimes got a seat going in to his work) and began with resolute will to ponder the problem of business success. And as he pondered his face took on a shrewd and calculating expression at variance with his youthful frame and his bright, speckled necktie.

At noon he went into a restaurant frequented by many business men of the neighborhood and was greeted by an elderly gentleman at a table near the doorway who invited him to sit down. Like the firm for which he worked, this man was a dealer in trimmings, and Dick was elated at such a sign of favor. Perhaps it might lead to an opportunity for advancement. He took his place with some embarrassment, however, not knowing whether this were an invitation to luncheon or only to a seat in which to have a friendly chat. Believing it wiser to assume the latter to be the case, he picked up the bill of fare and said in a loud voice, "I reckon you've ordered your grub."

Mr. James Talbert, whose modest sign on Broadway shone conspicuous among the plethora of foreign names, smiled good-humoredly and answered: "Not yet; I'm planning to order yours with mine. I don't have a young man fresh from the Sunny South to dine with me every day."

Richard Brown laughed hilariously to hide the hurt to his pride. It was not the first time that it had been conveyed to him that he was fresh.

A weary, indifferent waiter received the order, and in a short time they were engrossed in disposing of an excellent and hearty meal.

As he became less absorbed in his chops and sautÉ potatoes, Dick looked about the room filled with tables where busy men were intent on fortifying themselves with food before they went back to their engrossing work. He noted their faces, their figures, and guessed at their professions. The tall, thin young fellow ahead was a clerk like himself—he could tell by the way he was trying to joke with his waiter. There were newspaper men back of him; it was easy to determine them by their talk about this or the other "story." Moving down the aisle and returning his stare was a young, black-haired, dark-eyed Jew thrumming restlessly with his fingers. In business for himself, Dick guessed, and calculating on to-day's gains and to-morrow's expenditures. The young southerner wondered whether he would ever be able to do this, whether the day would come when he would have a business of his own.

"Chops all right?" The older man broke the silence.

"Hunky. See that fellow over there?" Dick pointed to a somewhat soiled, slouchily dressed youth who had taken a seat near them. "That's the way we look where I come from, only a heap more good-natured. Something like a mule, though, slow and kind of set-like; we could kick if it was worth while throwing out our heels. There ain't much hurry there, except if once in a lifetime you want to catch a train. Yes, and there's the factory, that's speeding up the folks."

"Miss it?" his companion asked.

"The way we do things, you mean? No, sir! I wouldn't go back, except for a vacation, not if you gave me a present of Casper County on a golden tray. I like it here; it's a race."

Dick spoke with emphasis and then took a great mouthful of food that required his full attention.

"Country boys are apt to feel that way." Mr. Talbert looked gravely at the young man before him. "The city would never grow as it does if it wasn't fed by country stock, strong young fellows who have worked out of doors and laid up energy to be exhausted later within the great buildings down town."

"I can't say as I ever did much work." The young Georgian grinned as he recalled his boyhood. "But I played a heap and made enough trouble for the neighbors to win me a gilt-edged certificate in cussedness. Business is a sort of play, I reckon, and the biggest daredevil comes out ahead."

"It means taking risks."

"Do you think," Dick asked, his cheeks flushing as though he expected to be guyed for his question, "that a fellow can come to New York any more without a penny and end a millionaire?"

"They're still doing it." The business man eyed his guest with evident interest. "But the number gets smaller all the time. It's a little like telling every boy that he can become president, this poor-man-to-millionaire business; nevertheless," looking intently at his listener, "it can be done."

"Honest Injun?" The joviality left Dick's face, though he tried to put it in his voice. His thin mouth was tightly drawn and the hard lines were accentuated about his deep blue eyes.

"Honest Injun." Mr. Talbert was amused again. "But don't forget the secret. Always look out for yourself. Don't think about the other fellow, for if he's a good business man you can count on it he isn't thinking about you."

"Listen!" Dick leaned forward. "I'm meaning what I say. I've got to get rich. It ain't for myself; it's for a girl, a girl that ought to have the best of everything in New York."

For the first time during the meal he spoke in a low voice, but with an intensity that drove the smile from his companion's face. With elbows on the table, his head resting on his hands, he looked into the older man's eyes as though he hoped by searching long enough to learn the secret of success that he saw about him in this great city—the success that moved outside in silent limousines, that inhabited beautiful houses filled with skilled servants, that sent its women and children, now the warm weather advanced, into other beautiful houses by the sea. In the Sunday supplements of the great papers he had seen pictures of these homes and of the women who dwelt in them. There was not a face among the many that belonged more truly in such surroundings than the face that he looked into at his boarding-house table every day. And among the men who had won this success were some, he knew, who had started as poor as he. He asked only to be told their secret.

Mr. Talbert did not smile at the mention of the girl as Dick feared he would. Instead he looked sympathetically at the long face before him.

"A girl's a good thing to work for," he said. "It keeps a man thrifty and sober. I'm not an expert on getting rich, for such money as I have was mostly made by my father before me. But I take it if a man is young and strong and has an aptitude for his profession, he can still get what he wants in these United States. But he's got to want it more than anything else in the world, more than leisure or friends, more, perhaps, than honor. He's got to carry his work with him, study it in the evening, dream of it at night. He's got to live poor before he can live rich. He must be able to use men for his own aims. He must skin or he'll be skinned. See here, Mac," clutching at a man who was passing, "come and give your advice to youth."

A large, comfortable looking gentleman stopped at his friend's bidding and looked quizzically at Dick as they were introduced. He would not sit down, and as the others were through their meal Talbert settled his account and they all stood for a moment together.

"Have a cigar?" offering one to Dick.

"I think I won't," Dick answered. "Perhaps that's one of the things to go slow on, eh, if I mean to succeed?"

"Yes, when it comes to buying them yourself; but never refuse a gift," and his new acquaintance thrust the cigar into the young man's hand.

"Here's an emigrant from the State of Georgia," Talbert said, turning to his friend, "who is bent on becoming a millionaire. He's got health and determination; all he asks for is advice. What's yours?"

"David Harum's golden rule," was the answer. "Do unto the other feller the way he'd like to do unto you, and do it fust."

They made their way past the waiters bearing their trays gleaming with straw-colored cocktails, bright with fruit, pleasantly odorous with freshly cooked meats and vegetables, on out into the street. The older men continued to explain the road to success in kindly speech, their tone and bearing at variance with the harsh gospel which they preached. Dick listened eagerly, as eagerly as he had once listened to the gospel of the evangelist at home. And as he shook hands and left them, he walked up Broadway feeling a strange elation. His hand went to his pocket for the cigar he usually smoked at this time, but, recalling himself, he put it resolutely back. He would live meagerly to-day that he might have a plethora in a golden to-morrow.

The soft May air blowing on his face recalled to him his southern home. He had been poor down there, and yet not poor in comparison with his neighbors. His father had owned hundreds of acres of miserable soil on which his tenants had planted cotton and reaped scanty crops. He recalled those tenants—sallow, ill-fed whites, shiftless blacks. Their cabins reeked with dirt and were always cluttered with children. The men were continually in debt, and while his father got from them all he could, being accounted a hard master by his neighbors, Dick knew that there was little enough that any one made. It had been a good thing when his mother had sold some of the property. Had it not been for their timber they would have known real poverty. He felt a sudden revulsion for his old home, its sordidness, its slow piling of penny upon penny with no greater outlook upon life than a new rifle or a Victrola in the best room. There was no game worthy the name to be played down there, only a monotonous round of stupid covetousness. Here the play was difficult and the stakes big.

He held his head very high that afternoon, and fairly touched the clouds when, before he went home, he was informed that he would again be sent for a short time upon the road. His first trip had brought in good results and he was to be entrusted with a better circuit and to receive a slight increase in salary. He felt grateful for the advancement, and then, recalling the advice of noontime, put this thought from him. If he were getting more money it was because the firm thought he was worth it, and that they must pay more or lose him. Therefore it was to his own interest, while serving them, to be looking for advancement. In the autumn he might seek a job with Mr. Talbert.

He was enough of a boy still to buy a box of candies to take to Hertha. Calculating that his luncheon had cost him nothing and that he would begin at once to save by smoking only one cigar a day, he spent a dollar on his gift, and with it tucked under his arm moved among the seething mass of faces, mysteriously upborne, on bodies with arms and legs, that stampeded the Brooklyn train. Once hanging to his hardly secured strap, contrary to the advice given him, he let the work of the day drop from his mind and fell into a day dream of a home of his own with Hertha as its queen. And as he thought of her, of her lightly poised head, her softly curling hair, her delicate hands, the minutes flew by and he was quite unconscious that he was standing amid a crowd of people, the women swaying on the straps to which they clung, one of them falling regularly against him at each station, the men endeavoring to read their newspapers while they balanced themselves with each recurring jolt. He was moving on as the train moved in a swift passage through time, stopping now and again at some well-marked station along the happy road of life.

As he neared his stopping place an old question came to perplex him. Who was this girl whom he so deeply loved? Ogilvie was a fine sounding name, and any one could see that she was descended from people of note. But he was curious to know something of her kin and of her early life. It was of no use to ask his mother or any of the folks at home. As he had once put it to Hertha, they were "hill billies," far removed from her progenitors. Mrs. Pickens had confessed ignorance when he had questioned her. The one person who could tell him anything he dared not question. There was something in Hertha's reserve that he was forced to respect, and yet he often wondered that any girl should be so wholly alone. She seemed to receive no mail. More than once, since she herself had first spoken of him, he had alluded to her brother, only to be met with a shy silence. He had never before known so silent a girl, or one, too, whom it was so difficult to interest. Sometimes when he recalled the Rosies and Annie-Lous at home over whom he had lorded it with the high hand of the best-known fellow in the county, he wondered that he should be so engrossed in one who was evidently indifferent to his advances. But he was keen enough to see that, like his coveted riches, the needed effort to gain her affection added to the intensity of his desire. But he did wish, as he clutched the candy to his side, that she would treat him a little better. They did not seem to be as near one another now as they had been in the winter when she was living with her Irish friend.

Nothing was solved as he ran up the stoop of Mrs. Pickens' boarding-house and put his key in the latch, but he was rewarded with a bright smile when, looking in at Hertha's open doorway, he tossed the box of candy on her bed. He was never invited over the threshold of her bedroom, though it was beyond his code of etiquette to understand why. In his mother's home the living-room contained the largest bed in the house, a massive affair with a variegated cover that every visitor was called upon to admire. But he had learned from experience that if he entered Hertha's room she shortly left it, and so, accepting her word of thanks, he went to his own quarters to make himself ready for dinner.

At eight o'clock, when Hertha was poring over a page of shorthand, vainly endeavoring to read the business letter from "Jones Brothers" to "Smith and Company," she heard a knock at her door. Opening it, she found Dick outside.

"I told them you didn't want to be disturbed," he hastened to say in answer to her look of annoyance, "but Mrs. Pickens and Miss Wood want you to come down and make a fourth at bridge."

"Get Mrs. Wood," Hertha made answer, "you know I can't play."

"Neither can she," Dick replied cheerfully, "but she don't know it. However, she won't," he added, "we've asked her."

Hertha looked at the page of wavering marks and hesitated.

"Oh, come along," Dick pleaded. "Do it 'to oblige Benson.' Mrs. Pickens has left a bunch of southern newspapers, just come in, to amuse us, but she wants you."

It was a standing joke in the household, the love its landlady bore for local southern news. A corner of her room was stacked with such weeklies as "The Cherokee Advocate," "The Talapoosie Ladies' Messenger," over which she would pore, reading the births and deaths, the marriages and divorces, the lawsuits and business tribulations, the receptions and engagements of the southern world as though each community were her own. "They're my novels," she would retort when Dick jeered at her fondness for these local sheets. Hertha appreciated her unselfishness in joining the game, and, obeying an impulse to have a good time, flung down her textbook, picked up her box of candy and, accompanied by Dick, went downstairs.

The young man was elated. At Hertha's request he placed the candy in the center of the table and seized upon her as his partner without permitting the question to be decided by cutting the cards. For this Hertha was grateful, since she knew little of the game and was confident that she would spoil the good time of either of the women should they have to bear her mistakes upon their score. Of Miss Wood she stood much in awe. That lady was an assistant secretary in an Association for Improving the Condition of the Destitute and knew a prodigious amount regarding poverty and crime. She played her cards as though solving one of her, day's cases. Mrs. Pickens had played to oblige too often to have any feeling of the importance of the game. To Dick, cards were a matter of luck; his failures were always attributed to poor hands, and with Hertha opposite him he cared little whether he ended in a pit of defeat or on a pinnacle of success.

"I wish you wouldn't talk so much about above and below the line," Hertha said, as they started upon a new rubber.

"Why?" Mrs. Pickens asked.

"Because it's in shorthand, and I want to forget the old stuff. All the sense of a sentence depends upon whether you're above or below."

"It's much the same in bridge," Mrs. Pickens made answer. "Now don't make it, Dick, unless you have the cards."

It was before auction bridge when the dealer's position was an important one.

"I'm not reckless, am I?" Dick asked, appealing to his partner. "I'm as careful as a donkey walking by the side of a precipice."

"Just about," said Hertha, laughing.

Forgetful of the game, he looked at her as though he would devour her.

"Perhaps you will decide on something," Miss Wood remarked sarcastically, "or let your partner."

"Make it, partner," said Dick, but Hertha, frightened at the opportunity, threw down a good hand.

Certainly her partner never lectured her upon her poor plays. He was quite indifferent when she took his Queen with her King, and when in a burst of adventure she doubled her opponent and lost four tricks he proved to her that she had done exactly right. This disaster made her cautious and in the following hand, with four aces, she made it spades and scored eight points instead of a grand slam. When the modest figure was placed below the line her partner cheered her for her success.

"Really, Miss Ogilvie," Miss Wood said, "if you want to learn bridge you must not think that a make like that is good. It is quite wrong."

Hertha laughed acquiescence. She was having a good time and enjoying Dick's ridiculous talk as hand after hand he kept up a stream of comment. Mrs. Pickens laughed with them, but the fourth member of the party became angry.

"This is not bridge," she said, her hands shaking as she picked up the cards dealt her.

"Ain't it?" said Dick good-naturedly. "Well, it's fun, anyway."

He took an unconscionably long time to decide on the trump, clutching his cards tightly, and wrinkling his forehead in imitation of his indignant opponent.

"Oh, do make it something!" Mrs. Pickens urged him.

"Very well, hearts!" cried Dick, "Hearts, the best suit in the pack."

He broke into exaggerated praise of the quite ordinary hand Hertha spread out for him. He loved the careful way in which she put each card in sequence.

"The King of my suit!" he cried. "Didn't I know you had it! Saw it with my poker eye. Ever play poker, Miss Hertha?"

He had asked the question before, and she did not trouble to answer him. Not that he cared whether he was answered or not. He felt elated at his day and at the evening that was bringing him such good fortune.

Talking steadily as he threw down his cards, he won a finesse, for by this time Miss Wood had lost all track of the game.

"What did I tell you?" he cried to Hertha boisterously. "This is the time we're going under and over both. Just you wait. Count the tricks! One, two, three, four, five, six—only four more and the rubber's ours. Watch me now! Just watch yours truly haul in the goods. Watch me——"

"Oh, stop talking, Dick," said Mrs. Pickens good-humoredly, "and play."

She was very fond of this southern lad, her one man boarder, and was quite ready herself to frolic. But, seeing the thundercloud on her partner's face, she endeavored to bring some seriousness into the occasion.

"Well, here goes!" cried the young man. "My trump card!" and he flung down the ace of hearts.

The deuce, tray and four spot fell upon it.

"One, two, three, four!" he called out. "Kiss the dealer!"

Leaning far over the table, his lips came within an inch of Hertha's own.

She drew back, blushing crimson, her body stiff with antagonism. Mrs. Pickens, to relieve the situation, put her arm around the youth's neck and, drawing down his head, gave him the asked-for kiss. But she could not resist murmuring, "A poor substitute."

"Three tricks more," Dick called, and dashed through the hand.

He won the game and the rubber, but he had reduced his partner to a state of frigidity excelling even Miss Wood's. "We won't play any more," she said to that lady, "I know you are tired at our noise." And with a general good-night she went out of the room, leaving the box of candy behind her.

Miss Wood added the score conscientiously, pronounced her partner and herself the winners, professed indignation at Dick's offer to pay anything he might owe, and, accompanied by Mrs. Pickens, left the young man to himself.

Richard Shelby Brown looked across the table at the empty chair and deliberately kicked himself. "What a mutt I am," he thought. "But if she were a princess, born with a lot of knights bowing before her all day long, she couldn't hold her head any higher." Then he pulled the cigar that Mr. Talbert had given him out of his pocket, struck a light and began to smoke. And as he sniffed the delicious fragrance and blew rings into the air, as he looked about the room at the bright pictures all descriptive of gaiety and happiness, he grew less disturbed and gradually regained his self-possession. One could never tell what a girl liked, but surely she must find it pleasant to know that a man wanted to kiss her. Had she slapped him on the face, as Annie-Lou would have done, he would not have minded. But she had blushed, and, oh how beautiful she became when the color rushed into her face! Tilted back in one chair, his feet on another, he puffed at his cigar and puffed again, and smiled gently, thinking of the princess in her room and of the palace that he must hasten to build.