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260 does imagine things sometimes. Do you know, I think she imagines, sometimes, that I'm really going to marry her."

"But you're not, are you, Barry?"

"Mrs. Bradley!—I mean Mary—how can you ask such a question when you know my only ambition is to marry you."

"That's very nice of you, Barry. But what would your father say to it?"

"Oh, he's dead set against it, of course."

"Why is he dead set against it?"

"He thinks you're not in our class."

"It would jolt his pride?"

"It would smash it. But you know, Mary, that would make no difference to me."

"It might cost you your job."

"No fear of that. They can't get along without me at the mill. Much of the success of the company is due to the way I manage things there."

"Indeed!" She smiled, and yet she felt that it was pathetic in a way—this man's confidence in his own ability, his open-mindedness and sincerity. One thing only she rolled as a sweet morsel under her tongue: Richard Malleson's distress at his son's infatuation.

But Barry's mind still dwelt on the bridge incident. "If I thought," he said, "that there was the slightest thing in that story of Jane's about you and Steve"

She reached her hand across the table and laid it on his as she had a habit of doing of late, and looked serenely into his eyes.

"Barry," she said, "you dear old f—fellow! If I thought there was the slightest danger of your getting jealous over that story, I'd make Jane Chichester eat her words. As it is, 'the least said the soonest mended.' Oh, here's Steve now."

Lifting her eyes at the sound of footsteps in the hall she had discovered Lamar in the doorway, and had hastily withdrawn her hand.