"I think there never was a man so generous as Allan—but, only you. I," he drew a breath of inexpressible content, "I see a bully good life ahead, but I don't see any woman in it, unless I find one like you. And from what I overheard Allan saying, just now when I passed you both at the alcove, he's secured the only perfect angel-girl——"
Laughing, warmly flushed, she put her hand across his lips.
But it was that evening, in the glowing richness and repose of the dining-room in the pink marble villa, now reinvested with the dignity of a home, that the core of the late situation was touched.
Once more Allan Gerard was intent upon the study of Flavia's young beauty as she sat near him in the lace gown, this time with his ring flaunting conquest on her fragile hand. Mr. Rose was leaning back and idly watching the ice dissolve in his glass, when Corrie broke the pause, resting his arms on the table and lifting his gay, mirthful face to the man behind his chair:
"Take away those oysters, Perkins! I want my soup right off, and a lot of it. I'm about starved——" He stopped, himself struck by the words.
The evoked recollections of that last dinner together were too much. Mr. Rose carefully put the glass down, his strong jaw setting. Flavia's large startled eyes flashed wet as they went to her brother.
"Corrie, Corrie, I can understand how you began," escaped Gerard impulsively. "But how could you carry it on month after month?"
The ruddy color ran up to Corrie's forehead, he looked down at the table, sobered.
"It didn't take me long to see I made an awful bungle of things," he confessed, half-shy and hesitant. "And it got worse and worse as I saw what I had done to you people. Yet I'd given my word. I guess you'll understand a lot more than I can say; as Allan will understand, now, why I couldn't help knocking down that tramp who wanted money because I belonged in prison and wasn't there. It was all too much for me to think out! But—isn't there something said about a fellow who puts his hand to the plough not taking it off? I used to say that over to myself, when—well, at night, for instance. I might have been a chump, but it seemed up to me to keep on with the work I had started, and—and not to flinch."