"I know I seem to have been playing the part of a fool just lately, but there has been a sort of reason for it." "What reason could there possibly be," she demanded, "which you could not confide in me ?" He was silent for a moment.

When he spoke again there was a new earnestness in his tone.
"Philippa," he said, "I have been working for some time at a little scheme which isn't ripe to talk about yet, not even to you, but which may lead to something which I hope will alter your opinion.

You couldn't see your way clear to trust me a little longer, could you ?" he begged, with rather a plaintive gleam in his blue eyes.

"It would make it so much easier for me to say no more but just have you sit tight." "I wonder," she answered coldly, "if you realise how much I have suffered, sitting tight, as you call it, and waiting for you to do something!" "My fishing excursions," he went on desperately, "have not been altogether a matter of sport." "I know that quite well," she replied.

"You have been making that chart you promised your miserable fishermen.