Nat decided to apply himself at the factory with redoubled energy, beginning the ensuing Monday morning. What was a mere quarrel with his father over one cheap girl’s wages beside losing the financial chance to keep his wife-to-be in the style and luxury she deserved? What if the Richards girl did get a raw deal? Who was the Richards girl, anyhow? Nathan felt like offering her up on the industrial altar without a qualm,—in the same class with the A-higher Unknown. Carol returned. She had a big fancy plate holding half a layer cake and a pitcher of milk. “It’s all I could find,” she apologized. “But I’m hungry enough to eat a boiled owl.” Nathan affirmed he likewise was sufficiently emaciated to assimilate boiled owl, but the cake would be a perfectly satisfactory substitute, seeing there was no boiled owl to be had at that hour. And so he was served to a generous helping of the cake and dropped jam on his pants and crumbs on the floor. Whereupon he was advised not to mind—What were a few crumbs on the floor?—and as for the jam on his pants, she would get him a damp rag and she did. But when Miss Gardner affirmed that she had made the cake, Nathan ate with a new relish and the fastidiousness of an epicure. So she was a cook! She could make cake as good as the sample under present mastication! What a girl! And what a wife! Nathan wondered if he hadn’t better get down on his knees that night and humbly say some regular prayers. Of course she depreciated her ability as a cake-maker. This was merely a little old mess she had “thrown together.” Some night he must come to tea and she would show him what a real meal was like. Would he come to tea? Oh, well, Nathan might. He applied himself rather diligently at the “office”, didn’t have much time for social nonsense. Still there were occasions when it was beneficial for a man’s head to forget business. Yes, possibly he might squeeze out a night and come to tea. The cake being eaten and the milk consumed—so much so that Old Man Cuttner ate his porridge next morning milkless—and the hour being late, there was nothing for Nat to do but take his departure. Which he did—regretfully. “I’m depending on you to help me with my problem, Mr. Forge,” was the last thing the girl whispered to him solemnly in the cold front hall. “Depend upon it, I shall not fail you,” were Nathan’s magnanimous words, closing that wonderful evening. And he walked off with his head high in the air, manfully, masterfully, to skid badly on the ice by the gate and turn bottom up with his hat flattened beneath him. But the Cuttner front door had closed. His fiancee had not seen. Therefore Nathan picked himself up painfully, knocked the dents from his hat, limped more carefully down the rest of the sidewalk and came back to the world. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XVII VALLEYS OF AVALON