CHAPTER XXI

Persis had not misjudged Forbes. If she had told him then that she was another man's betrothed, he would have changed his whole attitude toward her. He would have flirted with her no more. He would have ceased to regard her with ambition or desire. She would have become again only another piece of jewelry in a shop-window--beautiful, but not for him; beautiful, but already bespoken. He was not of the covetous and burglarious type that always wants other people's property.

Equally, the romance would have ended before it began if Forbes had told Persis that he was not rich, as Ten Eyck had carelessly assumed.

Persis might have liked him and admired him and been great friends with him; but she would not have admitted him to the anteroom that all hearts have where those eligible to the inner soul are first admitted to wait their time.

Persis did not make a test of money any more than the rest of her set