“But dad wishes me to say that our reconciliation makes no difference in his duty and his feelings to you, and that he has not reconsidered his disinheritance of his disobedient son. Your marriage dower will be quite as large as he had promised before, and the future must take care of itself. I have won my suit for my mother’s money, and if I never get a penny of dad’s my little love and I can be perfectly happy without it. “Dad will be home weeks before the wedding, so don’t worry, he says, as he loves you as well as ever. My sisters will be home before the wedding, too, he says, but I don’t expect an invitation, and would not come if you sent one! I suppose you and Berry won’t care to meet for a good while yet, and I won’t force a crisis. We will likely make our home over here, anyway, as Berry isn’t used to society, and I’m not rich enough to keep in the swim, either. So when dad goes, I’m going to buy a fine automobile, and we two, my love and I, are going touring in it. We shall be as happy as two birds in a nest. “The next letter will be from dad himself, telling you when to expect him home. Good luck to you, Rosalind, and good-by. “CHARLEY BONAIR.” This was the startling letter that threw Rosalind into a fit of angry hysterics. “The game is lost to me, I feel it, I know it! Oh, why did I let him go away from me over there, where those two scheming wretches were sure to nab him? Why didn’t I insist on an immediate marriage, so as to go with him? I was a fool letting him out of my sight as I did!” “Rosalind, your fears are groundless. Nothing but some glaring fault in yourself would prevent the marriage, and I tremble over this flirtation with Adrian Vance if it even gets to his knowledge. You go too far, indeed, my dear.” “Quit preaching, for Heaven’s sake; you drive me mad!” Rosalind cried angrily. “I shall flirt all I like, and with whom I like, for when I am tied down in wedlock with old Moneybags I shall have to be so proper I shall die of dreariness!” When she had got over her hysterical fit, she dressed herself with care and went down to her guests, where Adrian Vance always flew to attend to her lightest wish. When they got away by themselves, presently, in a shaded alcove behind the curtain, she said carelessly: “I have just had a letter from the senator, and the poor old man has had smallpox in a dreadful form. I am wondering if he will be so pitted as to make him more homely than he was before?” “I hope he may be rendered so hideous that you will break the engagement on sight,” he responded passionately. “Ah, Adrian, I wish he had your good looks along with his millions. Then I should be happy, indeed.” He seized her white, jeweled hand in a crushing pressure. “Ah, Rosalind, why are you so cruel when I love you so well and you pretend that you return it? Let that old man go, and give yourself to me.”