To you she’s an angel. All right. Think of it this way then. You admitted she was adorable. You just said she was wonderful. You know how beautiful she is. Well, here’s your chance to make her yours. Maybe it’s a thousand-to-one shot. Remember, you’ll do her good in any case. And you’ve that one chance in a thousand. Her mother was the most loving of women. Why, Stephen, if Cherry loved you…you would be entering the kingdom of heaven. She might.”

“My God!” gasped the young man.

“I am her father. I worship her. And I am begging you to do this thing.”

“All…right. I…I’ll do it,” Heftral replied in a queer strangled voice. “It will be my ruin. But I can’t resist. Only, understand…I couldn’t accept money.”

“Fact is, I didn’t think you would,” replied Winters quickly. “And your refusal makes me sure you are the right man. Come, shake on it, Stephen. I’ll be forever grateful to you whether we win or lose.”

Cherry heard him rise and cross the room. Taking advantage of this, she slipped out of the hammock and ran around to the back of the house, and, entering the long corridor, she arrived at her room in a more excited and breathless state than she had ever been in all her life. Closing the door she locked it and then relaxed against it, with a hand over her throbbing breast.

“If that wasn’t the limit!” she exclaimed, and succumbed to conflicting emotions, among which such rage as she had never felt assumed dominance.

Not long afterward her father knocked on the door. Cherry did not answer. He knocked again, and called anxiously: “Cherry?”

“Yes.”

“Dinner is ready. We’re waiting.”

“I don’t want any,” she replied.

“Why, what is the matter?”

“I’ve a headache.”

“Headache! You? Never heard of the like before.”

“Maybe it’s a toothache.”

“Oh,” he returned, and discreetly retired.

When Cherry’s anger had finally subsided so that she could think, she found she was deeply wounded. Things for her had come to a very sad pass indeed, if her father could go to such extremes. But were they so bad for her? How perfectly absurd. There was not anything wrong with her.