“It,” said Alix. “When--how long have you loved me?” Gerry’s face turned a deep red, but he raised his eyes steadily to hers. “It began,” he said simply, “when I took you in my arms and you laid your face against my shoulder and cried like--like a little kid.” “Oh!” said Alix again, and blushed in her turn. She had lost the upper hand and knew it. Gerry’s arms went around her, and this time she raised her face and let him kiss her. [Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch “‘CLEM,’ HE SAID, ‘DO YOU THINK I _WANT_ TO GO AWAY?’”] “Now,” she said as they started for the camp, “I suppose I must call you Gerry.” “Yes,” said Gerry, solemnly. “And I shall call you Little Miss Oh!” So casual an engagement might easily have come to a casual end, but Gerry Lansing was quietly tenacious. Once moved, he stayed moved. No woman had ever stirred him before; he did not imagine that any other woman would stir him again. To Alix, once the shock of finding herself engaged was passed, came full realization and a certain amount of level-headed calculation. She knew herself to be high-strung, nervous, and impulsive, a combination that led people to consider her lightly. On the day of the wreck Gerry had shown himself to be a man full grown. He had mastered her; she thought he could hold her. Then came calculation. Alix was out of the West. All that money could do for her in the way of education and culture had been done, but no one knew better than she that her culture was a mere veneer in comparison with the ingrained flower of the Lansings’ family oak. Here was a man she could love, and with him he brought her the old homestead on Red Hill and an older brownstone front in New York the position of which was as unassailable socially as it was inconvenient as regards the present center of the city’s life. Alix reflected that if there was a fool to the bargain it was not she. All Red Hill and a few Deerings gathered for the wedding, and many were the remarks passed on Gerry’s handsome bulk and Alix’s scintillating beauty; but the only saying that went down in history came from Alan Wayne when Nance, just a little troubled over the combination of Gerry and Alix, asked him what he thought of it. Alan’s eyes narrowed, and his thin lips curved into a smile as he gave his verdict: “Andromeda, consenting, chained to the rock.” CHAPTER IV To the surprise of his friends, Alan Wayne gave up debauch and found himself employment by the time the spring that saw his dismissal from Maple House had ripened into summer. He was full of preparation for his departure for Africa when a summons from old Captain Wayne reached him.