We just never came into any other contact, that's all. Although I knew you a great deal better than you ever knew me." She laughed again dreamily.

"Oh, I say!" said the young man wistfully. "Was that quite fair? Please tell me about it."

"Well, I guess there wasn't anything underhanded about it," said Daphne. "It was all perfectly natural. You remember the gardener's house--which we rented for a while until Father was able to buy it, after your garage was built with accommodations for your gardener over it?--it was in direct line with the western gable of your house. You know there was a rather high stone wall about our place, and from downstairs we could see very little of what went on at 'the big house' as we always spoke of your home, but from our upstairs back windows we could look across straight into the windows of your end room there. I've never been in your home of course, but I know pretty well the layout of that room for it was my fairyland to watch when I was a little girl. It had a great fireplace at the other side of the room directly opposite the big wide windows, and sometimes when the fire was burning it was our delight to stand with our noses against our windowpanes and watch the flames leap and dance over in your room. I don't know whether it was your playroom or nursery or what, when you were a little boy, but I can remember seeing you sitting on the floor in front of the fire building block houses, and running your wonderful electric train when you were a little older. Mother used to use you as an example of perfection for us children. One night when we were whining at having to go to bed I remember Mother saying, 'Come now, away with you to bed! The little boy at the great house is saying his prayers in front of the fire, and if you don't look out he'll beat you to bed!' And when we went to the window we could see you in pretty blue pajamas kneeling by your mother's knee in front of the fire, with your head in her lap. And after that we always ran to the window when we were sent to bed to see if the little boy in the big house was on his way to bed, too. But there! I shouldn't have told you that! You'll think we were very nosy little children, prying on your devotions that way."

"No, I won't think that!" said Keith gravely. "It's very touching to think you knew about those days--" His voice was husky with feeling. "I didn't know there was anybody left now that knew about those days since Mother died. I think it's rather wonderful for you to tell me that."

Daphne's cheeks were scarlet now with embarrassment. She looked up keenly to see if he was sincere.

"I was just thinking aloud," she apologized. "You see, it was the only excitement we children had when we were little, to watch the big house, and we wove it all into a sort of fairy tale. Mother had only to say, 'The little boy at the big house is going in from play now to do his lessons, and you must hurry in, too, and get your spelling, or he will get his homework done before you do,' and we would hustle in breathlessly and settle down to our tasks. You see you really were a means of grace in our household."

Daphne looked up and smiled, trying to cover her confusion with frankness.

He looked down at her wistfully.

"Well, I'm sure I wish I had known about it. Such rivalry might have been a means of grace to me, too. I'm quite sure I wasn't the angel-child you would make it appear. I guess I was taught to say my prayers all right, but I'm quite sure I unsaid them many a time when I wasn't being staged before a fireplace for an unknown and admiring public. But, please, tell me, if I was so well known to you, how was it that the only memory I have of you is that brief session of school when you were in my algebra class? How was it that I didn't meet you out places as we grew up? How was it that we didn't play together as children if our yards joined?"

Daphne smiled a bit distantly.

"Oh, we weren't in the same class with you socially at all, of course. My father had lost his modest fortune in a bank failure, and we were living in the gardener's house. And your father was a wealthy bank president living in a great beautiful old house with everything that money could buy. We had absolutely no connections at all. Even that six months we were together in algebra we scarcely knew each other to speak to."

"But why was that? My mother had no feeling of pride of that sort, pride of wealth or house or family. She only questioned whether my companions were decently behaved."

Daphne's eyes were downcast, but then she lifted them and raised her firm young chin with a little smile.

"I'm afraid my mother had," she said wistfully. "She did not want to force her way to the notice of people who might well consider her beneath them.