did. But, afterwards, he had put this thought away from him, feeling

that, as an actual witness to the wager between Ralph and Terry, his telling of the story would be more convincing.

As soon as they had gotten up from the table Peggy joined their only outside guest that evening. Together they walked away from the others.

But they did not go very far, as it was almost dark and turning a good deal cooler.

Peggy had put on a golden yellow sweater and, with her hair so closely bound about her head and her hands in her pockets, she had again the slightly boyish appearance characteristic of her.

But Howard Brent did not see this. To him she looked very young and sweet and ardent, with a lack both of vanity and self-consciousness which set her apart from a good many girls, but only made her more attractive to him.

“Can’t we find a place and sit down? You can’t be feeling fit enough for much of a walk,” Howard suggested.

At first Peggy shook her head, declaring she was all right, but later they went to a favorite spot near the foot of the hill and not far from the small lake. This was a favorite Camp Fire place, since it was near enough to have the rest of the Camp Fire party in sight and yet far enough away for confidences.

Peggy was not particularly interested in what Howard Brent had to say to her. He had seemed to be in the act of confiding something or other whenever they had met recently. But she had not considered deeply what the confidence could be, and really since he had asked her to give him a few minutes alone, she had not thought of the matter at all. She was much too tired.

But Peggy was always friendly and willing to listen when her friends wished to talk to her.

She sat now on an overturned log with Howard Brent on the ground beside her and facing her.

There was not much light except from the big camp fire many yards off. The pine trees and the hill made a rather gloomy background, and the stars were just struggling to show through the dusk.

“That was a pretty close shave you had this afternoon, Miss Peggy,” Howard began. It was awkward—this beginning of an awkward conversation, but as well one way as another.

Peggy nodded. “Let’s don’t talk about it tonight, if you don’t mind. It is silly, I know, but the more I think about the accident the more nervous I become. Why, I seem to be more afraid now than I actually was when I was hanging over that wretched precipice. I suppose, I was too paralyzed with terror then to realize what had happened. I just kept thinking that I was going to hold on to that tree and to Ralph, and that even if I died I wouldn’t let go. But now I keep having a vision of Ralph and myself sliding down forever and ever, with nothing to stop us. It would have been pretty awful, wouldn’t it?”

Peggy tried to laugh but the effort was faint-hearted.

Howard Brent frowned.

“It would have been about the most horrible thing I can imagine,” he answered gravely and with just the right amount of steadying sympathy in his voice. “As far as you are concerned I simply refuse to think of it. And, even though I don’t like Marshall, there isn’t any human being I dislike enough to care to contemplate such a fate overtaking him.”

Peggy’s lips parted and she flushed a little.

“Why don’t you like Ralph?” she asked quietly, but without any show of anger. “I have seen that you did not like him and I have been wondering about it lately. You see, Bettina Graham feels the same way and usually I have great respect for Bettina’s judgment. But I think she is mistaken about Ralph. You see, I have known him for several years, but not very intimately. He has been coming to our place in New Hampshire for a part of his holidays whenever he has liked, as his father and mine are great friends. Ralph and I have always been friendly enough, but he has never paid any particular attention to me until lately. I suppose I always seemed pretty young to him and a kind of tomboy. I really am one, you know, even if I am nearly grown. So, now, it seems awfully good of him to be interested in me, and I like him very much. That is why I think it is funny you and Bettina don’t like him. I know he wasn’t a good student at college and can’t make up his mind what kind of work he wishes to undertake. But there is time enough for him to find out later on.”

“Marshall is a cad,” Howard Brent interrupted. He had not intended to speak so abruptly, nor to show so much anger, but Peggy’s defense annoyed him.

However, she did not contradict him, nor reveal any of the petulance at being overruled, which most people would have expressed.

Instead, she looked at her companion with the clear, level glance he was beginning to know fairly well.

“That is a pretty hard thing to say about a human being, Mr. Brent. Sometimes I think it is perhaps the cruelest thing anybody can ever say about another,” she repeated slowly. “You see it really means everything. A man or a woman who is a cad is capable of almost any dishonor. And, worst of all, a cad does not even know when he is dishonorable.”

“Yes,” Howard Brent repeated. “I expect that is a pretty good definition of a cad. You may not think Marshall so bad as all that, but unfortunately I do.” He stopped a moment, his skin tanned from the Arizona winds and suns reddening faintly.

No matter how valiantly he had approached the moment of his confidence to Peggy Webster, the actual telling was to be no more agreeable then he had conceived it.

At this instant he hesitated.

“I think you owe it to Ralph to tell me why you think he is a cad,” she declared.

Peggy’s hands were clasped quietly in her lap and she was leaning forward, looking with earnestness at her companion. But she did not appear disturbed. She was sorry that he had so unfortunate a point of view about Ralph, but she did not feel in the least danger of being convinced by his opinion. For Peggy’s points of view were her own.

“Oh, it is pretty hard to tell,” Howard went on, “and you may not think I ought to tell you. Somehow it does seem impertinent of me to dare speak of it. But I just can’t stand your being influenced by Ralph Marshall’s attentions to you. The truth is about ten days or two weeks ago I overheard him making a bet with Terry Benton. He insisted that he could influence you to care for him as easily and in the same way that other girls do by paying you attention. He bet Benton a hundred dollars.”

Howard Brent’s face stiffened. The thing sounded even uglier in the telling than when it had occurred, and he had not intended that it should.

But Peggy merely stared at him incredulously.

“It must have been a joke!” she exclaimed.

Howard Brent shook his head.

“Well, even if it were a joke, it strikes me as being of a not very well-bred kind. I didn’t know how you might feel concerning it, but I felt that you ought to know. If you wish to continue friends with Marshall, now that you know, why of course it is not my affair. Perhaps girls are all alike!” Howard concluded.

Peggy was still looking at him, surprised, but not overwhelmed and apparently not entirely convinced.

“Somehow making a bet of that kind sounds so stupid,” she argued—not so much with her companion as with the impressions struggling for first place in her own mind. “It isn’t that I doubt what you have told me, Mr. Brent, only that I think you have made a mistake. Why should Ralph care enough one way or the other whether I like him? I am not a very important person.”

Howard Brent got up. “If you would like confirmation of my story you can speak to Terry Benton,” he announced, looking decidedly angry. “Personally, I am sorry I spoke to you of it.”

But Peggy had also gotten up and now put her hand on her companion’s arm.

“No; you are not sorry,” she returned. “Of course, I don’t want to speak of what you have told me to Terry Benton. But I would like to ask Ralph. Will you tell him to come over to see me in the morning, if he is well enough.”

And Peggy walked back with Howard Brent to say good night to her mother and aunt, serenely talking of other things.