When he had finished saying what was in his mind, he stood by the window feeling awkward and embarrassed. The man who climbed the flag pole having put the rope through the ring at the top slid suddenly down the pole and thinking for the moment that he had fallen Sam made a quick clutch at the air with his hand. His gripping fingers closed over Sue Rainey’s hand. He turned, amused by the incident, and began making a halting explanation. There were tears in Sue Rainey’s eyes. “I wish I had known her,” she said and drew her hand from between his fingers. “I wish you had known me better that I also might have known your Janet. They are rare--such women. They are worth much to know. Most women like most men--” She made an impatient gesture with her hand and Sam, turning, walked toward the door. He felt that he might not trust himself to answer her. For the first time since coming to manhood he felt that tears might at any moment come into his eyes. Grief for the loss of Janet surged through him disconcerting and engulfing him. “I have been doing you an injustice,” said Sue Rainey, looking at the floor. “I have thought of you as something different from what you are. There is a story I heard of you which gave me a wrong impression.” Sam smiled. Having conquered the commotion within himself, he laughed and explained the incident of the man who had slid down the pole. “What was the story you heard?” he asked. “It was a story a young man told at our house,” she explained hesitatingly, refusing to be carried away from her mood of seriousness. “It was about a little girl you saved from drowning and a purse made up and given you. Why did you take the money?” Sam looked at her squarely. The story was one that Jack Prince had delight in telling. It concerned an incident of his early business life in the city. One afternoon, when he was still in the employ of the commission firm, he had taken a party of men for a trip on an excursion steamer on the lake. He had a project into which he wanted them to go with him and had taken them aboard the steamer to get them together and present the merits of his scheme. During the trip a little girl had fallen overboard and Sam, springing after her, had brought her safely aboard the boat. On the excursion steamer a cheer had arisen. A young man in a broad-brimmed cowboy hat ran about taking up a collection. People crowded forward to grasp Sam’s hand and he had accepted the money collected and had put it in his pocket. Among the men aboard the boat were several who, while they did not draw back from going into Sam’s project, had thought his taking the money not manly. They had told the story, and it had come to the ears of Jack Prince, who never tired of repeating it and always ended the story with the request that the listener ask Sam why he had taken the money. Now in Colonel Tom’s office facing Sue Rainey, Sam made the explanation that had so delighted Jack Prince.