Bartlett shot a glance at the young man and began to whistle softly through his teeth as he indifferently raised the bonnet of his car and examined the clean, well-ordered machinery within. Would Billy’s charms be enough to hold the young man against his better judgment? Could he forget what the next week meant to him, forget the lure of the Street, the rise and fall of stocks, in the light of a woman’s eyes, in the sound of a woman’s laugh? If Billy could not keep him, what could? He must be kept. A week with him out of the way, the ring could be renewed, strengthened, that which was lost, regained. Bartlett bent low over his car, but he heard Billy, sweetly speaking to the Watermelon. "You don’t have to return to the city, do you? You would much rather go with us, wouldn’t you?" The Watermelon glanced at Bartlett. If he accepted too readily, Bartlett might wonder, yet if he hesitated, if he thought apparently of how important his presence in the city would be in the coming week, even if there were to be a few days of armed neutrality, it might seem even more impossible that he would consent to go. "Can’t you join us, Batchelor?" asked the general. "You’ve made enough for one while. When you run out of that three million, you can go back. Time enough then." "Swollen fortunes are a crime nowadays," said Henrietta, smiling her odd, half gay, half tender smile. "Come ahead, Batchelor," urged Bartlett with friendly good nature, neither too eager, nor too insistent, but his eyes were half shut and the palms of his hands wet as he rubbed them on his handkerchief. "We will start to-night," said Billy. "It will be beautiful. In the night, driving is perfectly lovely, you know, Mr. Batchelor." "Better come," advised the general. "We can keep in touch with the telegraph. It’s not as if we were going into the wilds of Africa." "No, indeed," said Bartlett. "I have interests in New York, myself, that I want to keep an eye on." Billy laid her hand on his arm. "Won’t you come?" she teased. The Watermelon looked down, under the brim of her hat, into the gray-green eyes and smiled. "Yes," he said simply. "I would like to." *CHAPTER VIII* *GRATITUDE IS A FLOWER* James lay in the shade of the butternut tree and smoked gloomily. He was well-shaved and his hair newly cut and carefully brushed, but his clothes were still the rags that had graced his muscular form since the dim, nearly forgotten long ago, when he had stolen them one lucky night from some back yard passed in the course of his travels. He squinted at the sun through the tree tops and judged it to be about four. The Watermelon had evidently done no better or he would have turned up before. Mike, sprawled in the grass beside him, slept with the stentorian slumber of the corpulent. James kicked him. "Aw, wake up," he growled. "I want your rare intelligence to unbosom me sorrowful and heavy heart to."