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DON-A-DREAMS

together, waving to him gaily as they turned on the sidewalk and saw him watching them from the open door.

VII

It seems that the sailor who survives a shipwreck accepts the fact of his escape not as a warning of the dangers of his life but as an assurance that they are not deadly, and goes to sea again with a veteran's contempt of storms. The crisis through which Don had passed did nothing to reform his impracticality, but rather developed and confirmed it. "Didn't I tell you we'd be all right," he exulted to Margaret, celebrating his good fortune in an evening at the theatre. "You certainly did," she laughed, "but you didn't look as if you believed it."

"I did, though," he assured her; and he thought that he was telling the truth. "All the time, I felt certain of it. It'll—— Now it's your turn. We'll organize your campaign now, won't we?"

She nodded, to conceal thought. She had not told him what success her afternoon's quest had had, but she had admitted that her mother's letter had ordered her home peremptorily and that she had tried to make the gentle reply that turns away wrath even while it refuses obedience. She was doubtful of the issue of her evasion. "I'll hear in a day or two."

"Well, don't worry," he counselled her. "I have—— If you run out of money, you must let me 'stake' you until you find what you wish."