"Well, get out, then," Betty Farrell dashed over and nervously opened the door leading out of the suite into the corridor; "go on--get out! I don't want no more fighting in here. Go on--you, too," this last to Daisy who, however, was already at the door. Jimmy glanced at Daisy as humorously as a man might who had one supremely black eye and a cheek all over blood. "I guess p'raps we might as well," he said. There was silence on the way down the three flights of stairs, and comparative uncommunicativeness on Jimmy's part until the end of the walk home was reached and the two stood under the trees just within the Harrison drive-gate. Then Jimmy, clearing his throat with the air of a man who has made up his mind to say something or die, observed, "I--I got to tell you one blamed good joke, Friend Nixon, before you go in." "What?" said Daisy. "Well," said Jimmy, "I--gr-r-h'm--I took you over there to-night to show you a happy little home in a three-room suite. As she turns out, however, that'n ain't so very happy to-night, huh? All my fault, for hikin' young Tom out of his crib." "Oh, well," said Daisy, "everybody fights, sometimes." "Yes, that's so," said Jimmy; "Yes, that's--that's so. But I--I--" "'M?" said Daisy, feeling something in her companion's cadence that caused a soft little titillation of her nerves. She drew back further into the shadow as she felt her cheeks grow involuntarily warm. "I know two of a kind--both of 'em easy-goin', I mean--that mightn't fight any more than oncet a week, at the outside. Do you think you could stand for that, Friend Nix--Friend Daisy?" Daisy drew a long breath, raised her face, and looked clear-eyed at her companion. "I know what you mean," she said, glad that the darkness prevented cheerful, curly-headed Jimmy Knight from seeing the shine of her glance and the color of her cheeks, "but I can't. Not the way I feel these days. What happened over in the suite to-night didn't make any difference. But--well, I just can't. I'm a funny girl." "You sure are," agreed Jimmy Knight; "how long did you say you'd need to think it over?" "Forever," said Daisy, firmly, in spite of the beating of her heart. "All right," responded Jimmy Knight, bravely choking down a certain obstruction that had risen in his throat, "I'll give you a day longer than that, so's it won't look as if I was rushin' you. Well--so-long, kid," he held out his hand. "Good-bye, Jimmy Knight," Daisy gave him her hand, then drew it away gently, and ran in-doors with tears in her eyes. CHAPTER XIV. THE GOLDEN STAIR. Sir William Ware put aside his book, covered a yawn, glanced up at the fireplace clock, which was about to chime nine; then, taking up the telephone which had been ringing with shrill iteration for a moment or two, casually laid his ear to it. "Yes," he said. "Sir William Ware?" vibrated the disk. "Himself," responded Sir William, lightly. "Well," said the voice at the other end of the line, "this is me." "Eh?"