“‘Don’t be. I’m glad. It gives me a chance to be brave as she was.’ “She put up one hand to her mouth and pressed her lips tight with it. “‘It’s odd, isn’t it?’ she asked. “He says he did not need to ask what was odd. He knew. It was the sudden new thing which was his--and hers. But the steeples were nearer. And a free life was what he had planned; it alone could bring him what he wanted. But he asked: “‘Will you come with me, as he said?’ “She shook her head. “‘Oh, no. I am not your kind.’ “‘But I love you,’ he told her then. You should have heard him speak those three words, the day he told me the story. Another man surely--not the Eric we know. He said it twice: ‘I love you.’ “‘And I you,’ the girl replied. “‘Then come with me,’ he pleaded. “‘No. It will pass. It cannot be the real thing. It was too quick for that.’ “She smiled, and he tried to laugh and say, without too much earnestness: “‘Shall I come back some day?’ “She shook her head again. “‘Please don’t.’ “He climbed slowly into the car, legs weighted, he said. He looked back as he gathered speed on the hard road. She was walking too slowly it seemed to him--her head too low---- “But everywhere were the steeples of fame and fortune to come if he were unhampered; if he could be always indifferent. The west had red streaks---- He drove away.” “Oh, I hate the man!” cried Janet, indignantly. “It’s just like him! What became of her?” “There she is now, at the end of the room,” said Kent, smiling at the evident astonishment of the group around him. Eric Hall’s wife was lifting her coffee cup and laughing. Her filmy sleeves fell away from perfect arms; a jewel flashed from a tiny silver band in her hair. She was clearly the loveliest, the most distinguished woman there. They stared at her. “But you just said that he drove away!” some one exclaimed in amazement. “That was the drama of your story!” “He drove back and got her,” finished Kent sententiously. PHANTOM ADVENTURE BY FLOYD DELL From _Century_ _I. A Secret._ He was not a banker by temperament. But nobody in New York, nobody east of the Rockies, knew that. It was his secret. When he graduated from college, instead of preparing himself seriously for life by cleaning the inkwells in some Wall Street institution, as an ambitious young man should, he got a job on a Western ranch. He did this for no better reason than that he had been fond of reading about cowboys. He learned many things about horses and cattle, and made friends with every cowboy within a hundred miles. Nevertheless, he was not satisfied; for cowboy life, while interesting enough in fact, is less romantically adventurous than in fiction. Yet he stayed there for five years, dreaming now of the sea and reading stories of sailor adventures.