No

had n't even invited me to jump. At first I was glad of it, and then it slightly irritated me. After all, Elsie had signified that she intended to jump. Everyone else seemed to be going to jump. They were all putting on their jumpers, or whatever you call them, and Dean was busily arranging everything. one referred to my morning's work, although I had already put in what I would have certainly been willing to call "a day." So I had made up my mind at least to try the jump, when I found that one did it from that trestle business-just flopped off into the air. Could one have thought up anything more childish? I determined it was simply too infantile to take part in.

Mr. Searl and Dean were talking about all those "swings" and things. They were discussing how far one could jump, and Dean said he 'd done a hundred, though I did n't know whether he meant inches or feet or yards, or how one measured it. They had chosen an abominably steep hill to put their platform on. That was the point, it seemed, because, when one came down, one ought to land on a slope that would give the least shock. I don't know how they hoped to minimize the shock of landing if one ever did land. I went to the edge of their platform, and it looked as if one would head straight for the tops of the pines across the valley. One might not reach them, but, at that, the fall would be atrocious. began to think they were lunatics to let Elsie do it, even though she said she had done it before, on the Bernese Oberland, I think.

I

I will say this for Dean; he jumped first. He went back about fifteen yards, and came at it crouching. He straightened up as he whizzed over that platform, and stood out against the sky quite beautifully upright. Then he went down out of sight. Then he came out on the snow below not nearly so far as I had expected, somehow, and he was in a kneeling position. He came around with a wide sweep.

Like coasting, half of the thing is in getting back, but he went round the side, where the slope was gradual, and was with us again in a comparatively short time. He really had done it very

well. My heart was actually almost warming to him when he looked at me and shook his head.

"Better not ever try it," he said. "You could n't make it."

Probably he did n't think how it sounded. But my spirit is proud and sensitive. Just then he showed Elsie's father a point or two, and the great financier launched himself in space, with his arms out like wings. He went down out of sight, but he also reappeared below, though in a somewhat more tangled condition than Dean. Still, he had n't fallen. Then they argued and reargued about Elsie's trying it, and Dean began to talk volubly about the "sats." That seems to be the Norwegian expression for the take-off. If you "sats" too soon, you-oh, I suppose you break your neck; but the danger of doing that is slight. You 're going so fast. If you "sats" too late, it spoils the length of your jump. But that did n't agonize me. I was sure I could "sats." You must leap erect like a jack-in-the-box at the take-off. You must n't cross your "shes," but hold them closely together and strictly parallel. Elsie soared and disappeared. I covered my eyes. They should not have let her do it. Miss Knowles agreed with me. But Elsie reappeared, with what Dean declared to be a "perfect stem." She is flowerlike and tall, but I thought the remark audacious.

Then Mr. Searl and Dean, just to show off, of course, jumped, one after the other. Elsie was watching them from below.

"Miss Knowles," I said, "in after years do not think too ill of me. Remember that man is at best an imperfect creature. I bequeath you my eyeglasses, for I am sure I shall not want to see what I am about to attempt."

splendidly free gesture I had intended. For a moment, as I attempted this last fatal manœuver, I saw the sweet sky spreading before me in all its virgin quality of blueness, the holy white of God's beautiful winter landscape that my evil heart had once blasphemed, the solemn grandeur of the somber pine-woods beyond. I thought of my father, my mother, my sister, my brother. I thought of a whole lot of relatives that I don't even possess. I thought of being too young to die. I thought of being too

great a fool not to die.

Oh, I thought of about everything! Then I disappeared.

I disappeared almost completely this time. They had to dig me out; they were seriously concerned. But I sat with them that evening by the fire con

suming numerous hot toddies, and I really seemed to have impressed Elsie. At least she says now that it revealed my noble nature. But then she immediately turns away and puts her handkerchief in her mouth. If one may adopt the Norse spelling, is n't that the eternal ski of it?

Vivian Roxborough, very smart in new ultra-English clothes, had been observed threading his way among the crowd on deck, plainly in quest of Miss Ellis. No sooner had he caught sight of her than he pressed forward, and no sooner was he near her than he stopped short, with his eyes intent on the lady at Miss Ellis's side.

Greta had forborne to challenge curiosity by absolutely concealing her features. But probably no one better than she understood the serviceability for disguise of a heavily figured white-lace veil. Mr. Roxborough must have known her well to be able to say with such

assurance:

"Why, Greta-" and then in the rebound from that betrayal of too close acquaintanceship away to the other end of the scale: "I did n't know you were on board, Mrs. Guedalla."

Greta stared at him through the meshes of the elaborate pattern and said with her grand air:

"Some mistake, I think."

Roxborough pinched his lips.

"Oh, you don't remember me! Well, perhaps you'll remember your husband. I'm rather expecting my manager to meet me on the dock. Or perhaps it 's you Mr. Guedalla is waiting for," Roxborough added with a peculiar smile.

Greta put a hand through Nan's arm and drew her near the gangway. She must have said something explanatory, for the girl turned her back with decision upon her late admirer. But her face was more than disturbed; it was shamed, frightened. A public rebuff is a terrible thing to the innocent mind.

Napier stood close behind the pair, waiting for the excuse he felt that Mrs. Guedalla would make for not going down with the crowd to confront her husband. But the lady was too entirely mistress of herself for that. Perhaps she counted on Mr. Guedalla's knowledge of the wisdom of not interfering with his wife. Straight down the gangway she walked, Nan behind her, recovering herself enough to make little signals toward a group-two ladies, a young man, and three children with flags-waving and smiling at Nan Ellis, first from the end of the crowded pier, then running along at the side, and now

waiting finally at the bottom of the gangway to fall upon the girl with their welcome.

Napier had no difficulty in deciding which of them was her mother despite the fact that Mrs. Ellis looked more like an elder sister. Yes, that must be a nice woman; but stupid, he decided, noting the cordiality, after that first motion of surprise, with which Mrs. Ellis received the lady in the baffling veil. She kissed Greta through the lace. Bah! With Nan's address in his pocket, he could afford to have her and her party in the hands of a customs officer, opening trunks on the pier.

Indeed, he had little choice, being at once appropriated by an English friend and an American steel magnate. Napier was carried away into a world about which all that he had heard had very little prepared him.

His private as well as patriotic interest in the possibilities unfolded did not prevent him from putting himself in touch with the British Intelligence Department before he dined that first night on American soil. The chief agent in New York was, or had been, as Napier knew, the British partner in an American shipping house. That he had married an American heiress Napier also knew. He was the more surprised to find Mr. Roderick Taylor installed en garçon at an hotel.

"My w-wife," said the long, fair young man with the strictly pomaded hair, "is in P-Paris with her sister, who is or-organizing American Hospital Relief. In any case"-his smile seemed to accept Napier as one to be treated frankly-"all sorts of coming and going is less marked in a c-caravansary like this."

He had run across Stein coming out from luncheon, said Mr. Taylor. Old Viennese friend of his, Stein. Had him up along with O'Leary, the Sinn Feiner, and a German-American dark horse, Bieber. "We are all dining at Bieber's to-morrow," said Mr. Taylor, and smiled as one who preserves a native modesty in full view of triumph. It was n't the smile he showed to his experimental bridge parties. "Greta von S-S-" The slight, very slight stammer gave a touch of unreadiness which perhaps

prevented the extreme competency of Mr. Roderick Taylor from being too marked. Napier noticed later that the stammer was hardly discernible when the engaging young man was off duty.

"Yes, von Schwarzenberg." He helped Taylor over the barbed-wire of the Teutonic syllables.

"Know her?" Taylor could go on glibly enough. "Rather!" And what, he asked, made Mr. Napier think the woman who had crossed with him as Mademoiselle La Farge was—

Clearly Mr. Taylor, whether in obedience to his own judgment or to the issue of some mot d'ordre, was disposed to take Napier at face-value; but he was far from accepting Napier's facts on the sole ground of Napier's belief in them. After the Schwarzenberg incident had been probed and sifted, Mr. Taylor sat back in his chair, gently perplexed and obviously perturbed.

"It 's not that we have n't been expecting her. The chief value of one of our men is that he has hitherto been able to keep in touch with her. But if she really has left the other side, he ought to have warned us." He took up the receiver of his desk telephone, and then laid it down. "We go warily with Miss von Schwarzenberg." He got up, and opened a door at the very moment that a frail, grizzled man entered the adjoining room from the hall. "Oh, Macray, just a moment!"

The man did not stop to take off either hat or coat. Middle-aged, dyspeptic-looking, he came in, settling his black-rimmed pince-nez on an insufficient nose. He took a reporter's notebook out of his pocket and stood there, sour, hopeless, a mere sketch of a man in black and white.

"Greta Schwarz is back," said Mr. Taylor. Without a pause and in the same low voice he ran rapidly over the main facts in the story Napier had told him. "Just set them to work," he wound up. "Quickest way to get on her track." He turned to Napier. "What's the American girl's address?" Napier did not disguise his reluctance to produce that particular information.

"You understand," he repeated for the benefit of the pessimist with the

note-book, "this Miss Ellis is under the most complete misapprehension about the woman."

"Of course, of course," agreed Mr. Taylor.

Macray impassively poised his pen. Napier gave the address. Macray set down a grudging stroke or two, and then said:

"All New York knows where to find Schwarzenberg." He dragged out the information as though talking increased his affliction, whatever it was. “Just heard. Been seeing reporters all afternoon."

"Who's been seeing reporters?" Taylor demanded.

"Schwarz."

"The deuce she has!"

Macray felt in his pocket. He drew out an evening paper, damp from the press, and folded to display:

COLONIALISM IN AMERICA
ENGLISH DICTATION
IMPRESSIONS OF GERMAN-
AMERICAN

ON RETURNING FROM BELLIG-
ERENT COUNTRIES

Napier stood at Mr. Taylor's side, and together they read how Miss von Schwarzenberg had not been an hour on this dear American soil before she perceived with pain that, while Germany was fighting for freedom of the seas, for human rights, America was forgetting she 'd ever won hers. After a genial reference in passing to the burning of Washington by the British, the lady protested that history was n't her strong point. Would some one, therefore, kindly tell her who had given the seas to the British? Upon the eloquent pause that seemed to have followed that request, the lady illustrated the service Germany was rendering the United States in protesting against English domination. It must be very humiliating, the lady thought, for Americans to have their mail-bags opened, their letters confiscated. "Of course some of the letters are for Germany. Why not? Is England to tell you to whom you may write? Is n't America a neutral? Or is that a pretence?" She gave cases of bitter hard