The girl forced a smile, though her eyes were troubled. "Yes," she said, "it has been delightful, only--I do so wish things were really settled for good. Can't you begin to tell something, Dick, about how long it will be?" Gordon made an effort not to appear annoyed. "No," he answered, a trifle coldly, "I certainly can't, and, for that matter, nobody can. For a guess, though, I should think that another six months would see things pretty well fixed. I expect to see Frost this morning, and of course a lot depends on the kind of report I get from him. If it's what I'm hoping for, it's practically the last link in the chain. If it isn't, then it's a choice between waiting or taking a chance on something that may go and may not. So it's really an impossibility, as you can see for yourself, to say just when things will be settled Still, I can't see but what we're doing pretty well as we are. You're not unhappy, are you?" The girl's troubled look did not alter. "No," she said, half doubtfully, "not really unhappy, but if I didn't know that this would all be over soon, and that within a year we should be married and settled down, I'm afraid I should be--miserably so. It's no kind of a life to be leading, the way we are now. Do you remember, Dick, the afternoon we went to the island?" Gordon nodded. No incident connected with his trips to the island was ever likely to escape his memory. "I do, very well," he answered shortly. The girl nodded in her turn. "Then you probably remember," she continued, "what I said that day. And I've never changed my mind since. Just to be by ourselves somewhere in a little place in the country, and I should never want to be rich or want to see the city again. That would be my idea of being happy, Dick, but of course you've got your ambitions, and I've no right to want to hinder them." [Illustration: Gordon. Page 167] Gordon laughed. "The eternal feminine," he quoted. "I'm sorry, my dear, but I'm afraid I can't give them up, even to please you. Let me try them first, anyway, and then, if you're still of the same mind, we'll have the cottage and the roses to fall back on in our old age. Well, I suppose I must really be going. Until next week, then." He stooped and kissed her, and in another moment the door had closed behind him, and he was striding away down the street. Outwardly, to the casual passer-by, he appeared the very embodiment of content; prosperous, untroubled, self-satisfied. But inwardly, his keen mind was busy forecasting the future, and he was even then dissecting himself, his strong and weak points, his successes and his failures, as judicially and as mercilessly as he might have done if he had been sitting in judgment on some stranger in whom and in whose fortunes he had not a ray of interest.