"Why not?" He looked at her with a new boldness. "I am a man of the world. Dick can't do anything more for you, but is there any reason why you and I should not be good friends?" "I think you are making a mistake," she answered quietly. "Dick fully intends to marry me. I am not the sort of girl you seem to think." "And last night?" "Was my own affair." "Very well," he rose reluctantly, "I suppose there isn't anything more to say. So you will marry Dick?" "Yes." "And starve with him?" "Perhaps." "I can't figure this out." He looked at her, doing his best to read her real intentions in her face. "You can't love him, or why this other fellow? I suppose you count on his father's forgiveness, but that, if it comes at all, won't come for years. You can't wait years; don't you see that? Your youth is your capital; you would be a fool to squander it, and you don't look to me like a fool." "No, I am not a fool," she said quietly. "I have certain plans, certain intentions, that mean everything to me. Dick, nor his father, nor you can't come between me and the life I want. You might help me, any one of you, but you can't hold me back. I should like to tell you just what it is I do want, but not here, not now. Are you afraid to trust yourself alone with me?" "Are you laughing at me?" "Perhaps." "What is it that you want me to do?" "Meet me in half an hour on the shore road, just above the place where we met yesterday; do you remember?" "Yes." "Get out of your head, before you meet me, the thought that I am the sort of woman who can be bought by any man. Until last night no man, in all my life, ever had the right to say that he had been anything to me. Do you believe that?" "Yes. I can't doubt it, when you look at me as you look now." "And you will be there, in half an hour?" "Yes. Your friends are coming. I will go now; I will be waiting for you." He passed Dick, and Bob, and Mrs. Harlan, and as he was about to descend the steps to the road, his daughter's voice stopped him. "Father." Alice stepped out of the house with a letter in her hand. "Look! Here is a letter from Aunt Helen; she is coming on the late train to-night." "That's fine," he answered heartily. "I am delighted! Good-bye, dear; I'm off for a little walk. I won't be long."