"Assuring her and all of you that my motives were most honorable, I beg of you to reconsider leaving me in this abrupt fashion. Return to your posts of duty, and this little difficulty will be adjusted satisfactorily to you and to Miss Conway." Kendale was used to making a hit with an audience--used to throwing his soul, as it were, into anything he had to say. The effect on the crowd below was magical; for a moment they were stunned. The old cashier was almost stunned. The young millionaire was just about proposing marriage to Margery! Why, what a mistake he had made--what a terrible mistake! Even Margery had fallen back a step or two and was clinging to her father's hand in the greatest amazement. "I--I think I was mad, friends and fellow-workers," he exclaimed, huskily. "I believe I was too precipitate in this affair. "It is so long since I was young I--I had forgotten that it is the custom of men now, as in the years long since gone by, to speak to a maiden of love before he said anything of marriage. "It did not occur to me that the great millionaire wanted my little girl for his wife, as he now says. "Hear me, friends, one and all. I most heartily regret causing this disturbance and I move that we return to our places, as our employer suggests." There was a murmur of assent among the throng; then, all in a body, they moved forward, entering the building again; and in less than five minutes' time matters were moving on quite as smoothly once more as though no sudden upheaval had ever occurred in the great dry goods establishment. Mr. Conway, however, was too upset to attend further to his duties that afternoon, and accepted the manager's suggestion that he should go to his home, Margery accompanying him. Meanwhile Kendale had thrown himself down into the nearest chair, breathing hard, feeling like a general who had achieved a most wonderful victory. "A few soft, silvery words saved me this time," he muttered, "but it throws the girl on my hands. Well, I suppose I will have to propose marriage to her now--every one expects it; there would be a terrible rumpus kicked up if I did not. Well, let there be an engagement between us; that doesn't mean that there will be a marriage, by any means. The engagement can drag along three or four years, and then we can break off. By that time I shall be ready to marry the heiress of the Fairfax millions. Ah, how much easier it is to scheme for a fortune than to toil for one, as most poor mortals do." The entrance of the manager with the bill for the hundred and twenty-five thousand put an end to his musings and plans for the present. Mr. Wright emerged from the office ten minutes later with a very troubled expression on his face. It was dearly patent to him that Mr. Lester Armstrong did not care how badly the business was crippled, so long as he secured the yacht and the fast horses.