His glance wandered from her face to the long-stemmed roses on the mantel-shelf behind her. He knew perfectly well where those roses had come from. She saw the resentment in his eyes. The resumption of social relations between her aunts and the Holtons that had brought her in contact with these nephews of Jack Holton struck her in a new light, with Fred there before her, with Charles's roses flaunting themselves unrebuked in her father's house. She had no business to be receiving Fred Holton; Charles's flowers assumed suddenly a dire significance. She meant to be rid of them the moment she could do so without attracting attention. It was on her tongue to say something unkind to Fred; her loyalty to her mother seemed to demand it. And yet neither Fred nor Charles had been in any wise responsible for her mother's tragedy. Fred had risen and stood before the fire with his arms folded. The care he took to make himself presentable, expressed in his carefully brushed clothes; the polish on his rough shoes; his clean-shaven face, touched her now as at other times. She wondered whether, if they had been alone, she would not have confessed her perplexities and asked his counsel. In their talks she had been impressed by his rugged common sense, and her plight was one that demanded the exercise of just that quality. Rose turned the pages of her book. Her father and Nan continued their conference in low tones in the adjoining room. "You promise--don't you--that you won't ever do foolish things like that any more," and Fred put out his hand half in farewell, half as though the clasp he invited would mean a pledge. "Please forget it. I'll probably never have another chance. That was the kind of thing you do only once; there wouldn't be any fun in doing it over again." "Your father has been mighty nice to me: I wanted to tell him I appreciated it. I felt I'd like to say that to him on Christmas--just a kind of sentimental feeling about it. But you please say it for me. He'll understand; I couldn't say it before the others." She responded passively: there were a good many things that she must say to her father! Kirkwood and Nan reappeared as they heard Fred saying good-bye to Rose. Nan said she and her sister must be going, too, as they had some calls to make. At the door Nan kissed Phil, and asked her to come to see her the next day. The kiss and this special invitation, half-whispered, confirmed Phil's belief that her father and Nan would have told her of their engagement if Fred's coming had not interfered. She was glad for the delay, and yet it would have been easier in many ways to have met the issue squarely before Nan and Rose. She and her father watched Fred and the women pass from sight toward town. "He seems to be a nice fellow," remarked Kirkwood, as they returned to the living-room--"a clean, manly sort of chap."