"Yes, yes," he replied. "I dare say. But it's getting late, and I'm an early riser." He beckoned to a waiter for his bill. "What's hurry?" enquired Holt. "It is late," repeated Stainton. Holt shook his head. "Never late in New York," said he, and then rising uncertainly to his feet, he pointed a warning finger. "Or you may call it Nature. Perhaps's Nature's a better word. Nature. Beautiful nature. Trees and things. Birds mating in--in May. Mustn't go 'gainst beautiful nature, Jim." "Come on," said Stainton. But in the street, Holt flung his arms about his unwilling companion's neck. "I'm--I'm fond of you, Jim," he said. "You save' my life 'n'--an' God knows I love you." Easy tears were running down his puffed cheeks. "Only you _are_ old, Jim. You know you are." Stainton disguised his disgust. He disengaged himself gently. "No, I'm young, George," he said, "and young blood will have its way, you know." Holt faced him, swaying on the curb. "So you really mean--mean to do--to do----? You know what I mean?" "If she will have me, I do," said Stainton, for the third time that night: "I intend to marry her." IV THE APPLE OF THEIR EYE Mrs. Preston Newberry had risen to the distinction of that name several months before Stainton, as a young Harvard undergraduate, came to know and love her sister. Very likely she had never heard of Jim until his triumphal march to New York, and certainly, if she had ever heard of him, she had long ago forgotten his name. Her early married life had completely occupied itself in an endeavour to live up to her new title, and, since this effort was not crowned with a success so secure as to dispense with the necessity of careful watching (for eternal vigilance is the price of more things than liberty), her present existence was sufficiently employed to make her regard the care of her niece with resignation rather than with joy. Muriel's father had not survived his wife beyond a decade. In that period he managed to spend all the money that the previous portion of his mature career had been devoted to acquiring, and Muriel's grandparents on both sides had long since passed to the sphere of celestial compensations; the girl had, therefore, in some measure, been forced upon her aunt. A timid little girl with long dark hair that nearly concealed her face, she was brought to New York. "And now," Mrs. Newberry had remarked to her husband, "the question is: what are we to do with her?" It may be that she had entertained from her early reading of the novels of Mrs. Humphry Ward a vague hope that Preston would propose to make Muriel the child-light of their otherwise now definitely childless home. If, however, such an expectation had formed, it was speedily shattered: Preston, like many another husband, inclined to the opinion that one member of his wife's family was enough in his house. He expressed this opinion in his usual manner: briefly, but not directly. "How the hell do I know?" he asked.