Jemmy is certainly taking notice. Look out! We must put her off the track somehow. Couldn't you make love to her--a little? Not much, and, oh, please, _never_ before me, because I just couldn't bear it!--This is a kiss. O Channing appreciated this Machiavellian policy, and endeavored to put it into practice; but without success. Nothing doing! (He wrote in answer). There's a look in that cool, greenish eye that sheds Cupid's darts like chain armor. If I must make love to any one but you, darling, it will have to be your mother. She's human. I tell you no man living would have the courage to breathe airy nothings into your sister's ear more than once.--Here's two kisses. O O "Poor Jemmy!" thought Jacqueline, gently, when she read this. "Poor Jemmy," indeed. Possibly she had made some such discovery for herself. The time came when the author reluctantly admitted to himself that he had no further excuse to trespass upon Mrs. Kildare's hospitality. From the first he had been able to limp about the house, pale but courageous; now he found it difficult even to limp with any conviction. At last Farwell quite bluntly advised him that he would better be moving on. "Your book is calling you, eh, what? If not, it ought to be. The old 'un is looking rather firm, if you ask me. Polite, of course, even cordial--it would not enter the creed of these people to be anything else, so long as one is under their roof. But firm, nevertheless." Channing started. "You don't think she's on?" Farwell shrugged--a gesture carefully done from the model of Philip Benoix. "How did you explain your accident up there?" "Told her we happened to be prowling about the hillside, and ran upon a moonshine still that didn't like us." "Did you mention the hour of your innocent ramble?" Charming flushed. "It _was_ an innocent ramble, you know.--I did not mention the hour, however." "What about Benoix? He and Mrs. Kildare are very thick." Channing flushed again. The memory of his last conversation with the clergyman rankled. "Benoix's not the talking sort," he muttered. "Besides, he's still up in the mountains, arranging about a mission or something." Farwell looked at him thoughtfully. "Not the talking sort--you're right, he's the acting sort. Typical Kentuckian and all that. His father's a convicted 'killer,' by the way." "Oh, shut up!" said the author, inelegantly. "What if I have made love to Jacqueline? Does every girl who gets love made to her have to be led forthwith to the altar? The notorious Mrs. Kildare would hardly be a squeamish mama, I think. Why, she's got a common woman of the streets here in the house as a sort of maid-companion to her young daughters! What can you expect?"