"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I--I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait on you." She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure. And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob. He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour. "Well!... _did_ you ever!" That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect from that kind of a girl?" "_Ssh!_ maybe he's coming!" After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner, anyway." "And, besides, we only wanted to hear--" Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he had brought in. While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just as Betty came downstairs. "Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?" "Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket one of the oil lamps. "Hardly," he responded, touching a light to the wick and replacing the chimney. "It's a good deal of a job." "Yes..." He replaced the lamp, and in the act of turning toward another caught a glimpse of the girl's face, pale and drawn, her eyes a trifle reddened. And with that commonsense departed from him, leaving him wholly a prey to his impulse of pity. "Oh, thunder!" he told himself, thrusting a hand into his pocket. "I might as well be broke as the way I am now." He produced the scanty remains of his "grubstake." "Miss Graham..." "Yes?" she asked, wondering. "Could you get a party dress for thirty-four dollars?" "Thirty-four dollars!" she faltered. He discovered what small change he had in his pocket: it was like him to be extravagant, even extreme. "And fifty-three cents?" he pursued, with a nervous laugh. "Heavens!" the girl gasped. "I should think so!" "Then go ahead!" He offered her the money, but she could only stare, incredulous. "I'll stake you." "Oh..._no_, Mr. Duncan," she managed to say. "Oh, yes!" He tried to catch one of the hands that involuntarily had risen toward her face in a gesture of wonder. "Please do," he begged, his tone persuasive, "as a favour to me." But she evaded him, stepping back. "I couldn't take it; I couldn't really." "Yes, you can. Just try it once, and see how easy it is," he persisted, pursuing.