"I won’t have other women looking sideways at you—the hussies! I’m jealous. I shall hereafter walk out with you. Do you hear what I threaten?—you very flighty and deceitful man! Steve is going to chaperon you everywhere you go." John Cleland’s smile altered subtly: "Not _everywhere_, Steve." "Indeed, I shall! Every step you take." "No, dear." "Why not?" "Because—there is one rather necessary trip I shall have to make—some day——" A moment’s silence; then her arms around his neck: "Dad!" she whispered, in breathless remonstrance. "Yes, dear?" "Don’t you—_feel_ well?" "Perfectly." "Then," fiercely, "don’t dare hint such things!" "About the—journey I spoke of?" he asked, smiling. "Yes! Don’t say such a thing! You are not going!—until I go, too!" "If I could postpone the trip on your account——" "_Dad_! Do you want to break my heart and kill me by such jokes?" "There, Steve, I was merely teasing. Men of my age have a poor way of joking sometimes.... I mean to postpone that trip. Indeed, I do, Steve. You’re a handful, and I’ve got to keep hold of you for a long while yet." Jim overheard that much: "A handful? Rubbish!" he remarked. "Send her to bed at nine for the next few years and be careful about her diet and censor her reading matter. That’s all Steve needs to become a real grown-up some day." Stephanie had risen to face the shafts of good-natured sarcasm. "Suppose," she said, "that I told you I had sent a poem to a certain magazine and that it had been accepted?" "I’d say very amiably that you are precocious," he replied tormentingly. "Brute! I _did_! I sent it!" "They accepted it?" "I don’t know," she admitted, pink with annoyance; "but it won’t surprise me very much if they accept it. Really, Jim, do you think nobody else can write anything worth considering? Do you really believe that you embody all the talent in New York? _Do_ you?" And, to Cleland Senior: "Oh, Dad, isn’t he the horrid personification of everything irritatingly masculine? And I’ll bet his old novel is perfectly commonplace. I think I’ll go up to his room and take a critical glance at it——" "Hold on, Steve!" he exclaimed—for she was already going. She glanced over her shoulder with a defiant smile, and he sprang up to follow and overtake her. But Stephanie’s legs were long and her feet light and swift, and she was upstairs and inside his room before he caught her, reaching for the sacred manuscript. "Oh, Jim," she coaxed, beguilingly, "do let me have one little peep at it, there’s a dear fellow! Just one little——" "Not yet, Steve. It isn’t in any shape. Wait till it’s typed——" "I don’t care. I can read your writing easily——" "It’s all scored and cross-written and messed up——" "_Please_, Jim! I’m simply half dead with curiosity," she admitted. "Be an angel brother and let me sit here and hear you read the first chapter—only one little chapter. Won’t you?" she pleaded with melting sweetness. "I—I’d be—embarrassed——"