Evelyn Avery was very much in the present, and most insistent.

"Honestly, Keith," she said, as earnestly as a girl with such red lips was able to speak, "I'm in a horrible jam and I'm appealing to you to help me out. It's a matter of life and death so to speak, and I know you won't fail me. You were always so gallant toward anyone in trouble!"

She looked at him with daring black eyes into which she could, on occasion, put an essence of wistfulness that seemed almost real.

"You see, it's this way." She lowered her voice till her words took on the nature of a confidence. "Cousin Nada is staying with us. You remember Nada Beach who spent a winter once with us and went to school with me? Sort of a highflier, you know. Mother quite disapproves of her now, she's so much worse than she used to be. And she has a friend staying in the city whom she's crazy about, and as soon as she finds out that one of the men can't come to the dinner she'll do her best to get him asked. She's already suggested it to Mother in case someone fails. And it happens he used to be engaged to one of my guests and jilted her, treated her scandalously, and I simply couldn't bring them together at my house! You can see that. And I can't explain, either. I promised I would never tell anyone. I'm sure you will see what a jam I'm in and come to the rescue."

Keith Morrell tried to explain how necessary it was that he get back to New York at once, but Evelyn overcame all his arguments. He simply must help her out, and she would see that he got the midnight train from the city if that was absolutely necessary.

They had reached the agent's house by this time, and the young man, made to feel exceedingly selfish if he did not yield, gave reluctant consent.

"I'm not dressed for a formal dinner," he said as he got out, brightening at the thought of a real excuse at last. "You know, I didn't bring a suitcase with me."

"Oh, we're not formal," laughed Evelyn. "Anything goes in this town this time of year. Besides, I'll tell them I grabbed you from the train and compelled you to come in. Or, if you don't like that, my brother Bronson will lend you something. He has dinner coats galore. Though you're quite all right as you are."

"All right, I'll come!" he said as gracefully as he could.

"I'll wait for you," beamed Evelyn. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!"

And no protest could stir her from this decision.

He went into the agent's house feeling that he was caught in a trap, and it was all his own fault.

The agent had a buyer and he was anxious to finalize the sale at once, but strangely enough, although he had come down from New York expecting to sell, and anxious to finish the matter up as soon as possible, Keith found a sudden reluctance upon him. A dim vision of a little boy in pajamas and bare feet kneeling at his mother's knee beside an open fire seemed to come between himself and any possible buyer. It was as if the old house had suddenly become a holy place with which he had no right to part lightly.

The agent painted the sale in glowing terms. The buyer wanted to take possession at once and was willing to pay cash. He was planning to pull down a portion of the present house and make radical changes, modernize the whole thing, make an apartment house out of it, and then cut up the rest of the land into small building lots and make snappy little bungalow homes out of them. He might even go a thousand or two higher if Mr. Morrell didn't feel he was getting enough.

Keith Morrell thought of the little white house behind the hedge where the white picket gate hung, with an old-fashioned latch. He thought of children at its back window watching out toward the old house to see a little boy who was their hero, and a lovely mother walking in the garden at evening with her arm around her boy. Something clutched his heart!

What was the matter with him? Modernize the house? Break up the lovely grounds into a block of cheap little houses? Well, what was the matter with that? It was the sensible thing for the new owner to do if he could put it over. Why should he care? If he sold it--and he had expected to sell it, of course--why should he care what became of it?

He sat there staring at the agent, a cool mask upon his face, while he struggled with emotions he did not quite understand. Why was it that something stood in his way when he thought of assenting to a program like this?

At last he arose and faced the agent: "I will give you my answer day after tomorrow," he said.