Suppose--and this, I need not add, is in confidence between us--suppose I suggested to Mr.
Neergard--" "Oh," cried young Erroll, delighted, "that is fine! Neergard would be glad enough.

Why, we've got that Valleydale tract in shape now, and there are scores of schemes in the air--scores of them--important moves which may mean--anything!" he ended, excitedly.
"Then you think it would be all right--in case Neergard likes the idea ?" Gerald was enthusiastic.

After a while they shook hands, it being time to separate.

And for a long time Selwyn sat there alone in the visitors' room, absent-eyed, facing the blazing fire of cannel coal.
How to be friends with this boy without openly playing the mentor; how to gain his confidence without appearing to seek it; how to influence him without alarming him! No; there was no great harm in him yet; only the impulse of inconsiderate youth; only an enthusiastic capacity for pleasure.
One thing was imperative--the boy must cut out his card-playing for stakes at once; and there was a way to accomplish that by impressing Gerald with the idea that to do anything behind Neergard's back which he would not care to tell him about was a sort of treachery.
Who were these people, anyway, who would permit a boy of that age, and in a responsible position, to play for such stakes?
Who were they to encourage such--?
Selwyn's tightening grasp on his chair suddenly relaxed; he sank back, staring at the brilliant coals.

He, too, had forgotten.
Now he remembered, in humiliation unspeakable, in bitterness past all belief.
Time sped, and he sat there, motionless; and gradually the bitterness became less perceptible as he drifted, intent on drifting, back through the exotic sorcery of dead years--back into the sun again, where honour was bright and life was young--where all the world awaited happy conquest--where there was no curfew in the red evening glow; no end to day, because the golden light had turned to silver; but where the earliest hint of dawn was a challenge, and where every yellow star whispered "Awake!" And out of the magic _she_ had come into his world again! Sooner or later he would meet her now.