"I am Jim Brett. But now you understand, will you forgive me?"
"I don't understand yet, except that you must have been afraid I might care more for your money than for you, if I knew. Oh, how could you think such a thing of me? But about the steerage——"
"That was beforehand. It had nothing to do with you, though everything that was to come, came from it. I was abroad for a couple of years, and a friend I knocked up against in Paris last June bet me a thousand dollars that in spite of all my queer experiences, I wouldn't have the pluck to rough it in the steerage of a big ocean liner. I took the bet, and won it. If it hadn't been for seeing you, I should have gone West almost at once after landing in New York, but I had seen you, so I stayed. Luckily for me, I'd met Miss Woodburn often in San Francisco and once here. She recognised me in my steerage get-up and was the only one who did; but her tact kept her from spoiling sport. She guessed there must be a game on, and said not a word to anyone. She wouldn't, even if I hadn't managed to send her a note, which I did. I had a conversation with her on board, too, the day before getting in, and--we talked about you. Even then I felt sure you couldn't be the sort of girl to care about money, but——"
"It was partly my fault, Betty," Sally broke in when he paused. "To be quite, quite frank, I knew that the Duchess had fallen in with some ideas of Katherine's, and I couldn't tell how far your bringing up mightn't have influenced your nature, so I encouraged Mr. Harborough to test you by keeping up the story that he was a poor young fellow named Jim Brett. It handicapped him, and kept him away from you; but you were interested in him to start with, and I did my best to keep up the romance. I thought he wouldn't lose by it in the end, and he hasn't. There was the morning in the Park; I managed that; and I got Katherine to send him an invitation to her big party. He was playing a waiting game, because he wanted you to care in spite of every drawback, or else he wouldn't want you to care at all; and then, before he was ready for any coup, Fate stepped in and did the rest."
"In the best way it could have been done, I think," said Jim. "Now, little girl, do you understand, and have you forgiven me?"
"I'd like to think you could have trusted me from the very first, without playing at all," I answered. "Still--it is romantic, isn't it? And besides, even if I were very angry, I--I'm afraid I'd forgive you anything after seeing you ride that horse."
"I'm hanged if I couldn't, too," said Stan. And laughing, the two shook hands.
"And I suppose I shall have to, as well," purred Mrs. Ess Kay, quite kittenish, "if only somebody would introduce Mr. Harborough to me."
(As if anyone cared whether she forgave him or not!)
"What about the Duchess?" asked Sally.