Nevertheless, when I threw off my dressing-gown instinct compelled me to dress at my prettiest. To be sure, my prettiest was only a flowered muslin and a Leghorn hat, in which I resembled the vicar's daughter in a Royal Academy picture; but if I was never to see Larry Strangways again I wanted the vision in his heart to be the most decent possible. As I dressed I owned to myself that I loved him. I had never done so before, because I had never known it--or rather, I had known it from that evening on the train when I had seen nothing but his traveling-cap; only I had strangled the knowledge in my heart. I meant to strangle it again. I should strangle it the minute I went down-stairs. But for this little interval, just while I was fastening my gown and pinning on my hat, it seemed to me of no great harm to let the unfortunate passion come out for a breath in the sunlight. And yet, after having rehearsed all the romantic speeches I should make in giving him up forever, he never mentioned love to me at all. On the contrary, he had on that gleaming smile which, from the beginning of our acquaintance, was like the flash of a sword held up between him and me. When he came forward from a corner of the long, dim drawing-room all the embarrassment was on my side. "I suppose you wonder what brings me," were the words he uttered when shaking hands. I tried to murmur politely that, whatever it was, I was glad to see him--only the words refused to form themselves. "Can't we go out?" he asked, as I cast about me for chairs. "It's so stuffy in here." I led the way through the hall, picking up a rose-colored parasol of Mrs. Rossiter's as we passed the umbrella-stand. "How much money have you got?" he asked, abruptly, as soon as we were on the terrace. I made an effort to gather my wits from the far fields into which they had wandered. "Do you mean in ready cash? Or how much do I own in all?" "How much in all?" I told him--just a few thousand dollars, the wreckage of what my father had left. My total income, apart from what I earned, was about four hundred dollars a year. "I want it," he said, as we descended the steps to the lower terrace. "How soon could you let me have it?" I made the reckoning as we went down the lawn toward the sea. I should have to write to my uncle, who would sell my few bonds and forward me the proceeds. Mr. Strangways himself said that would take a week. "I'm going to make a small fortune for you," he laughed, in explanation. "All the nations of the earth are beginning to send to us for munitions, and Stacy Grainger is right on the spot with the goods. There'll be a demand for munitions for years to come--" "Oh, not for years to come!" I exclaimed. "Only till the end of the war."