“I don’t see that it’s particularly funny,” he said at last. Dick flushed quickly, glanced at him and then back to the fire. But he was not looking at her, and after a little pause he went on:-- “It seems to me pretty small business, all round. It’s rather different from anything I’ve ever known you to be interested in before. I can’t quite understand your enthusiasm over it.” “No,” said Dick, “I don’t suppose you can.” Jack was warming to his subject, and he misread her words into an acknowledgment that he was right. “I’ve known you longer than John Bagsbury has,” he went on, “and I think that I’ve as good a claim to your friendship; but I’d like to know what you’d think of me if I should do a trick like that,--go round and deliberately stir up a row so that I could profit by it.” “I should think you were a cad,” she said calmly, “and I should ask you not to call here in the future.” “I should like to be able to see what makes the difference.” “Why, this is the difference,” Dick answered slowly; “John Bagsbury is the sort of man that does things; and you’re--well, you’d rather watch other people do them.” She paused and glanced at his face; then with a smile she went on:-- “It’s like a football game. If you’re standing in the side lines, you aren’t allowed to punch people’s heads, or kick shins, but if you’re running with the ball, why nobody minds if you forget to be polite.” “That’s a bit rough,” he said musingly, “but I’m not sure that you’re not right--and that I’m not just about as useless as that.” “I didn’t say that,” she retorted, “and I don’t mean it. It takes both sorts of people, of course, and I like you a great deal better than I do John Bagsbury; but I find there’s rather more to life than I could see when I first came here; and when a man’s strong, as he is, and ambitious, and has a sort of courage that’s more than just the love of a fight, and when he’s honest with himself and lives up to what he knows, why, I admire him and I can forgive him if he has some callous spots. And I don’t think that people who’ve never had his ambitions or temptations or anything can afford to look down on him.” When she stopped she was breathing quickly, and her eyes were unusually bright. There was a long silence, and then she added, with a little laugh,-- “I never knew before that I could make a speech.” He said nothing, and after a moment she glanced at him almost shyly, to discover if she had offended him. He did not look up, but kept his eyes fixed thoughtfully on the fire, so, secure in his preoccupation, she watched his face intently. Their comradeship had, for years, held itself to be above the necessity of conversation; but to-night, as the silence deepened and endured, it brought to Dick a message it had not borne before. At length he spoke, “That’s your ultimatum, is it, Dick?”