But Blair met the Englishman’s gray eyes with his blue ones. “I did have a bottle of champagne, Gordon, that’s a fact, but it couldn’t make me see what I did see.” “Dan,” the Duchess of Breakwater broke in, “let Gordon take you home, like a dear. You’re really ragging on in a ridiculous way.” Blair looked at her steadily, and as he did so he repeated: “That’s all right, Lily. Gordon cares a lot, and the truth of the matter is that I _do not_.” She grew very pale. “I would have stuck to my word, of course,” he went on, “but we’d have been infernally unhappy and ended up in the divorce courts. Now, this little scene here of yours lets me out, and I don’t lay it up against either of you.” “Gordon!” she appealed to her lover, “why, in Heaven’s name, don’t you speak!” The Englishman realized that while he was glad at heart, he regretted that he had been the means of her losing the chance of her life. “What do you want me to say, Lily?” he exclaimed with a desperate gesture. “I can’t tell him I don’t love you. I have loved you, God help me, for ten years.” She could have killed him for it. “I can tell you, Dan, if you want me to,” Galorey went on, “that I don’t believe she cares a penny for any one on the face of the earth, for you or me.” Old Dan Blair’s son showed his business training. His one idea was to “get out,” and as he didn’t care who the Duchess of Breakwater loved or didn’t love, he wanted to break away as fast as he could. He sat down at the table under the light of the lamp and drew out his wallet with its compact, thick little check book, the millionaire’s pass to most of the things that he wants. “You’ve taught me a lot,” he said to the Duchess of Breakwater, “and my father sent me over here for that. I have been awfully fond of you, too. I thought I was fonder than I am, I guess. At any rate I want to stand by one of my promises. That old place of yours—Stainer Court—now that’s got to be fixed up.” He made a few computations on paper, lifted the pad to her with the figures on it, round, generous and full. “At home,” he said, “in Blairtown, we have what we call ‘engagement’ parties, when each fellow brings a present to the girl, but this is what we might call a ‘broken engagement party.’ Now, I can’t,” the boy went on, “give this money to you very well; it won’t look right. We will have to fix that up some way or other. You will have to say you got an unexpected inheritance from some uncle in Australia.” He smiled at Galorey: “We will fix it up together.” His candor, his simplicity, were so charming, he stood before the two so young, so clear, so clean, that a sudden tenderness for him, and a sense of what she had lost, what she never had had, made her exclaim: “Dan, I really don’t care a pin for the money—I don’t”—but the hand she held out was seized by the other man and held fast. Galorey said: