“No; I won’t sell you up, Mr. Lucas,” she said. “Is it settled then? Is the Big Deal on? Is the franchise secured?” “I thought you read the letters, Miss Adair. You aren’t forgetting the code, are you?” Mr. Lucas looked half-annoyed, half-amused. “I want you to go over the mail carefully, and I surely want you to read the code straight.” “I did read the letters, Mr. Lucas, and I understood that they were favorable, but--to tell the truth, I understood what I read enough to do the right thing with them, but the letters did not make much impression on me; I had something important on my mind,” candid Cis explained. Mr. Lucas laughed outright. “A girl is a girl, clever or stupid, faithful or unreliable! I’d wager I could shrewdly guess the important subject. Important, mark you! The franchise being a mere bagatelle! Well, well, Miss Adair, I’ve no doubt that you did precisely as you say you did, read and understood, and forgot for really ‘important matters’ when you had read! The franchise is assured, Miss Adair, and great events are afoot! I am as delighted as I have been anxious about it. We shall all profit, but it is my honest conviction that the profit to the public will exceed the money returns. Be careful not to know all this, if you please; the information must not leak out yet, not for two months more,” Mr. Lucas warned Cis. “I’ll keep quiet, Mr. Lucas. I’ve been approached by a few Poll Prys, but--nothing doing!” Cis laughed gaily, permitting herself a relapse into the slang which her new dignity had been making her eschew. That evening Rodney met Cis just beyond the door of the building which housed the Lucas and Henderson offices, when she came forth at nearly five o’clock. The sight of him, handsome, faultlessly dressed, debonair, smiling happily as they came toward each other, set Cicely’s pulses bounding joyously; his presence was the sufficient answer to the doubt of him suggested by Miss Gallatin, repudiated by Cis, yet, like all doubts, hard to silence completely, even when downed. “Oh, Rod, I’m glad!” cried Cis almost running over the short distance intervening between them. “Oh, Cis, I’m gladder!” echoed Rodney. “What’s amiss, Cis? Amiss-Cis; goes along slick, but Cis is never amiss!” “I want to confess to you, Rory,” said Cis, as Rodney turned to walk with her. “The only one I want you ever so much as to think of confessing to,” Rodney said approvingly. “Someone warned me that it wasn’t safe to play with you, Rory O’Moore, that I’d be sorry later on, that you weren’t quite, quite all right, trustworthy, you know. I didn’t really listen; I did not believe, and I said that sort of talk had to stop, but it was said, Rod, and I’m ashamed of myself that I let more than your name get past. I didn’t listen, I didn’t truly, but too much was said.” Cis poured out her confession eagerly.