"No, we’ll let the maids go, but we’ve got Gusta Koerner to come in every day and look after things. I’m glad for her sake--and ours. We can trust her." "I should think Dick would want to go." "No, he has this new automobile now, and he says, too, that he can’t leave the bank." She smiled as she thought of the seriousness with which Dick was regarding his new duties. "Then you’ll not go to Mackinac?" "No, we’ll close the cottage this summer. Papa doesn’t want to go there without us, and--" "But Dick will miss his yacht." "Oh, the yacht has been wholly superseded in his affections by the auto." "Well," said Marriott, "I’ll not go north myself then. I had thought of going up and hanging around, but now--" She looked to see if he were in earnest. "Really, I’m not as excited over the prospect of going to Europe as I should be," said Elizabeth with a little regret in her tone. "I haven’t been in Europe since I graduated, and I’ve been looking forward to going again--" "Oh, you’ll have a great time," Marriott interrupted. She leaned back and Marriott eyed her narrowly; he saw that her look was weary. "Well, you need a rest. It was such a long, hard winter." Elizabeth did not reply. She looked away across the river and Marriott followed her gaze; the sky in the west was darkening, the afternoon had grown sultry. "Gordon," she said presently, "I want you to do something for me." His heart leaped a little at her words. "Anything you say," he answered. "Won’t you"--she hesitated a moment--"won’t you look after Dick a little this summer? Just keep an eye on him, don’t you know?" Marriott laughed, and then he grew sober. He realized that he, perhaps, understood the seriousness that was behind her request better than she did, but he said nothing, for it was all so difficult. "Oh, he doesn’t need any watching," he said, by way of reassuring her. "You will understand me, I’m sure." She turned her gray eyes on him. "I think it is a critical time with him. I don’t know what he does--I don’t want to know; I don’t mean that you are to pry about, or do anything surreptitious, or anything of that sort. You know, of course; don’t you?" "Why, certainly," he said. "But I have felt--you see," she scarcely knew how to go about it; "I have an idea that if he could have a certain kind of influence in his life, something wholesome--I think you could supply that." Marriott was moved by her confidence; he felt a great affection for her in that instant. "It’s good in you, Elizabeth," he said, and he lingered an instant in pronouncing the syllables of her name, "but you really overestimate. Dick’s all right, but he’s young. I’m not old, to be sure; but he’d think me old." "I can see that would be in the way," she frankly admitted. "I don’t know just how it could be done; perhaps it can’t be done at all."