"That's absurd. Women want men, not cripples." "You're no cripple. Stop using that term." "What else? A man condemned to wear a plaster jacket for at least a year." King evidently did his best not to speak bitterly. "Bosh! Suppose the same thing happened to me. Would you look on me askance for the rest of my days, no matter what man's job I kept on tackling? Besides, the plaster jacket's only a precaution. You wouldn't disintegrate without it." King looked at Red Pepper Burns and smiled in spite of himself. "I'm glad to hear that, I'm sure. As for looking at you askance--you are you, R.P. Burns." "Apply the same logic to yourself. You are you, and will continue to be you, plus some assets you haven't had occasion to acquire before in the way of dogged endurance, control of mind, and such-like qualities, bred of need for them. You will be more to us all than you ever were, and that's saying something. And the back's going to be a perfectly good back; give it time. As for--if you don't mind my saying it--that invalid's diversion, I don't suppose it's hurt you any. What I'm concerned for is the hurt it may have done somebody else. I don't need to tell you that it wasn't possible for Ellen and me to have that little girl on our hearts all that time and not get mightily interested in her. She's the real thing, too, we're convinced, and we care a good deal what happens to her next." Jordan King drew a deep breath. "So do I." Burns gave him a quick look. "That's good. But you let her go away without making sure of keeping any hold on her. You don't know where she is now." King shot him a return look. "That wasn't my fault. That was hard luck." "I don't think much of luck. Get around it." "I'll do my best, I promise you. But I wish you'd tell me--" "Yes?" "--why you should think I had done her any harm. Heaven knows I wouldn't do that for my right arm!" "She didn't make a sign--not one--of any injury, I assure you. She's a gallant little person, if ever there was one--and a thoroughbred, though she may be as poor as a church mouse. No, I should never have guessed it. She went away with all sails set and the flags flying. All I know is what my wife says." "Please tell me." "I'm not sure it will be good for you." Burns smiled as he drew up beside a house. "However--if you will have it--she says Miss Anne Linton took away with her every one of your numerous letters, notes, and even calling cards which had been sent with flowers. She also took a halftone snapshot of you out at the Coldtown dam, cut from a newspaper, published the Sunday after your accident. The sun was in your eyes and you were scowling like a fiend; it was the worst picture of you conceivable." "Girls do those things, I suppose," murmured King with a rising colour.