"He has a very interesting face," his fiancee conceded. "Yes, hasn't he?" Dorothy agreed lightly, something evidently being expected of her. "He may be the tenth wonder of the world," declared Ridgeway Jordan, springing in to take his old place beside her for the drive of an eighth of a mile left to him; "but I grudge him this hour by you. Jove, but I thought the drive would never end!" Julius, after seeing his friend off with a sense of comradeship more worth while than any he had known, walked rapidly back, eager for a word with Dorothy. Quick as he was, however, she was quicker, and he found her locked into her own room. By insisting on talking through the door he got her to open it, but there was not so much satisfaction in this as he had expected, because she had extinguished her lights. "How did you like him?" was his first eager question. "Very well," said a cool, low voice in the darkness. "Much better than the trick you used to carry out your wishes." "Trick!" her brother exclaimed, all the angel innocence he could summon in his voice. "When you wouldn't tell me a word of where you were going!" "You guessed it. It was abominable of you." "Oh, see here! If I hadn't managed it you wouldn't have seen him--and he wouldn't have seen you." "And what of that?" queried the cool voice, cool but sweet. Dot's voice, even in real anger, was never harsh. "Well, what of it?" was the counter-question. "Can you honestly say you wish you hadn't met him, a real man like that?" There was silence. Julius moved cautiously across the room, avoiding chairs as best he could. "Be honest now. Isn't he the real thing? And isn't Ridge Jordan--" "Please don't talk about poor Ridge that way, Jule." "Poor Ridge!" cried Julius. "Well, well, you didn't speak of him that way this morning. What's happened?" "Nothing has happened. That is--" He came close. There was a queer little shake in Dorothy's voice. She began to laugh then quite suddenly to cry. Julius came near enough to pat her down-bent head. "Did that confounded close call shake you up a bit?" he inquired sympathetically. "By George! when I think what I let you and Kirke and everybody in for, starting earlier than they meant and all that, so we were just in time to meet that fool in the worst place on the road--" Dorothy looked up. To his astonishment she sprang to her feet and clasped him about the neck, burying her face on his shoulder. She began to say something into his ear, laughing and crying at the same time, so that all he was at length able to gather was that she didn't regret the close call at all, for it had shown her--had shown her--