“I want you to guard against any soft surprise,” said Adrian. “She seemed so sure of you. She said you were the only friend she had in the world. She came to the Adelantado Hotel to find you--that you should lend her ten dollars for the railroad fare to Ingleside!” “The liberal Floyd-Rosney!” “I want you to look out for her. She is a designing woman. She is heartily tired of her bargain, and with reason, and she wants to pick up the happiness she threw away five years ago----” “With me and poverty.” “She has enjoyed an artful combination of real poverty and fictitious splendor. I want you to be frank with me, Randal, and confide in me, and----” “Take that paw off my arm.” “--and,” continued Adrian, removing his hand, “not make an outsider of your own, only twin brother.” “Heaven protect me from two twin brothers like unto this fellow,” laughed Randal. “Make yourself easy, Adrian; when I am finally led to the altar I shall countenance an innovation in the marriage ceremony--the groom shall be given away by his own only twin brother.” “She broached the matter herself when she had an opportunity to speak aside to me on the _Cherokee Rose_,” said Adrian, his reminiscent eyes on the fire. “What? Divorce and remarriage?” “Oh, no--no. The course she had pursued with you.” Randal’s eyes glowed with sudden fire; his face flushed deeply red. “That was very unhandsome of her,” he said curtly, “and by your leave it was very derogatory to both you and me for you to consent to discuss it.” “Why should _I_ decline to discuss it when she introduced the subject,--as if I felt that _you_ were humiliated in the matter or had anything to regret?” “It would seem that neither of you were hampered with any delicacy of sentiment or sensitiveness.” “She spoke to me of a gift of yours that she had failed to return. She wished me to convey it to you. But I referred her to the registered mail or the express.” “That was polite, at all events.” “I told her that the relations between my brother and myself were peculiarly tender, and that I would not allow her to come between us. And, with that, I bowed myself away.” Randal’s eyes gloomed on the fire, with many an unwelcome thought of an old and shattered romance. But when he spoke, it was of the present. “Adrian, I am sorry I was so short with you. Of course I know you could not openly avoid the topic forced upon you in that way. I am sure, too, that you did not fail to take full cognizance of my dignity, as well as your own. I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for a million dollars.” “Well, you did it,” retorted Adrian, “and nobody that I know of has offered you so much as fifty cents. It was a gratuitous piece of meanness on your part. And you can take that paw off me,” glancing down with affected repugnance at Randal’s caressing hand laid on his sleeve.