He cursed himself for his heedless folly, yet--he knew well enough that he would not have denied himself that moment of bliss when the girl in response to his whispered words of love gave him her first kiss, and with it the unspoken pledge of her loving heart. "I'm making another ass of myself!" he spoke aloud and continued to chew the end of a cold cigar. The New York office was deserted in these last days of August except for two clerks who had just left to take an early train to the beach for a breath of air. The treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries Company was sitting idle at his desk. It was an off-time in business and he had leisure to assure himself that he was without doubt the quadruped alluded to above--"An ass that this time is in danger of choosing thistles for fodder when he can get something better." Only the day before he had concluded on his own account a deal, that cost him much thought and required an extra amount of a certain kind of courage, with a Wall Street firm. Now that this was off his hands and there was nothing to do between Friday and Monday, when he was to start for Bar Harbor to join the Van Ostends and a large party of invited guests for a three weeks' cruise on the Labrador coast, he had plenty of time to convince himself that he possessed certain asinine qualities which did not redound to his credit as a man of sense. In his idle moments the thought of Aileen had a curious way of coming to the surface of consciousness. It came now. He whirled suddenly to face his desk squarely; tossed aside the cold cigar in disgust; touched the electric button to summon the office boy. "I'll put an end to it--it's got to be done sometime or other--just as well now." He wrote a note to the head clerk to say that he was leaving two days earlier for his vacation than he intended; left his address for the next four days in case anything should turn up that might demand his presence before starting on the cruise; sent the office boy off with a telegram to his mother that she might expect him Saturday morning for two days in Flamsted; went to his apartment, packed grip and steamer trunk for the yacht, and left on the night express for the Maine coast. VII "I just saw Mr. Googe driving down from The Gore, Aileen, so he's in town again." Octavius was passing the open library window where Aileen was sitting at her work, and stopped to tell her the news. "Is he?" The tone was indifferent, but had she not risen quickly to shake some threads of embroidery linen into the scrap-basket beneath the library table, Octavius might have seen the quick blood mount into her cheeks, the red lips quiver. It was welcome news for which she had been waiting already six weeks. Octavius spoke again but in a low voice: "You might mention it to Mrs. Champney when she comes down; it don't set well, you know, if she ain't told everything that's going on." He passed on without waiting for an answer.