This seemed to Dumont rank ingratitude. Had he not just divided a million dollars among charities and educational institutions in the districts where opposition to his "merger" was strongest? "Well, we'll see," he said. "If he isn't careful we'll have to kill him off in convention and make the committees stop his mouth." "The trouble is he's been building up a following of his own--the sort of following that can't be honeyfugled," replied Merriweather. "The committees are afraid of him." Merriweather always took the gloomy view of everything, because he thus discounted his failures in advance and doubled the effect of his successes. "I'll see--I'll see," said Dumont, impatiently. And he thought he was beginning to "see" when Gladys expanded to him upon the subject of Scarborough--his good looks, his wit, his "distinction." Scarborough came to dinner a few evenings later and Dumont was particularly cordial to him; and Gladys made the most of the opportunity which Pauline again gave her. That night, when the others had left or had gone to bed, Gladys followed her brother into the smoke-room adjoining the library. They sat in silence drinking a "night-cap." In the dreaminess of her eyes, in the absent smile drifting round the corners of her full red lips, Gladys showed that her thoughts were pleasant and sentimental. "What do you think of Scarborough?" her brother asked suddenly. She started but did not flush--in her long European experience she had gained control of that signal of surprise. "How do you mean?" she asked. She rarely answered a question immediately, no matter how simple it was, but usually put another question in reply. Thus she insured herself time to think if time should be necessary. "I mean, do you like him?" "Why, certainly. But I've seen him only a few times." "He's an uncommon man," continued her brother. "He'd make a mighty satisfactory husband for an ambitious woman, especially one with the money to push him fast." Gladys slowly lifted and slowly lowered her smooth, slender shoulders. "That sort of thing doesn't interest a woman in a man, unless she's married to him and has got over thinking more about him than about herself." "It ought to," replied her brother. "A clever woman can always slosh round in sentimental slop with her head above it and cool. If I were a girl I'd make a dead set for that chap." "If you were a girl," said Gladys, "you'd do nothing of the sort. You'd compel him to make a dead set for you." And as she put down her glass she gave his hair an affectionate pull--which was her way of thanking him for saying what she most wished to hear on the subject she most wished to hear about. XIV. STRAINING AT THE ANCHORS. Gladys was now twenty-four and was even more anxious to marry than is the average unmarried person. She had been eleven years a wanderer; she was tired of it. She had no home; and she wanted a home.