Henry started at the mention of the traitor, then experienced elation at perceiving that Miss Billie must have been quizzing her father about him last night after he left.
"You're not as impractical as that, are you," she harpooned into his mind amusedly—"to neglect a formal contract and the matter of emolument?"
"No; oh, no," Harrington disclaimed with a perplexed smile; and then, suddenly frank as a schoolboy, blurted: "In fact, I think I'm a good deal less impractical since you gave me that shot yesterday about peace-time slackers."
So unassuming, so uncomplaining, so grotesque in his wrinkled evening clothes and sheik-like headgear, and so gravely unaware was he, Billie had been quite unable to keep from laughing at this naive young man; but at this remark she was instantly all serious. "You mean that just from my chance word you've decided to get busy—at least to get busier?" She asked the question admiringly, making plain that she had exactly the same passion as her father to see everybody up and doing—to make two volts of energy crackle with human effort where only one had sizzled before.
Henry flushed up—he who was so unaccustomed to flushing—and felt an embarrassed desire to evade those questioning violet rays, but they pinned him helplessly. "Why, yes. It seems absurd—it sounds like bunk to be telling you this, Miss Boland; and perhaps it's only a coincidence, but, right after seeing you, I decided to be less impracticall. I went down to my office and registered a whole lot of new resolutions."
Charming curiosity and sly pleasure were both figured on Miss Boland's face, but the latter was too
