“Of course I like you awfully well,” said Geraldine, flushing pinkly, “and it isn’t that I haven’t every confidence in you, but—­I must take a little time to decide.”

A steamer passed, and Jimmie resumed his strokes, mechanically turning the canoe out of the trough.  Geraldine opened the magazine and began to scan the editor’s note under the title.  “Why,” she exclaimed tremulously, “did you know about this?  Did you see the proofs?”

“No.  What is the excitement?  Isn’t it straight?”

“Listen!” Miss Atkins sat erect; the cushion dropped under her elbow; her lips closed firmly between the sentences she read.

“’This is one of those true stories stranger than fiction.  This man, who wantonly murdered a child in his path and told of it for the amusement of a party of pleasure-seekers aboard a yacht on Puget Sound, who should be serving a prison sentence to-day, yet never came to a trial, is Hollis Tisdale of the Geographical Survey; a man in high favor with the administration and the sole owner of the fabulously rich Aurora mine in Alaska.  The widow of his partner who made the discovery and paid for it with his life is penniless.  Strange as it may seem—­for the testimony of a criminal is not allowable in a United States court—­Hollis Tisdale has been called as a witness for the Government in the pending Alaska coal trials!”

The Society Editor met Jimmie’s appalled gaze.  “It sounds muckraky,” she commented, still tremulously.  “But these new magazines have to do something to get a hold.  This is just to attract public attention.”

“They’ll get that, when Tisdale brings a suit for libel.  Hope he will do it, and that the judgment will swamp them.  They must have got his name from Mrs. Feversham.”

“It looks political,” said Geraldine conciliatingly, “as though they were striking through him at the administration.”

“Go on,” said Jimmie recklessly.  “Let’s have it over with.”

And Geraldine launched quickly into the story.  It had been mercilessly and skilfully abridged.  All those undercurrents of feeling, which Jimmie had faithfully noted, had been suppressed; and of David Weatherbee, whom Tisdale had made the hero of the adventure, there was not a word.

“Great guns!” exclaimed the unfortunate author at the finish.  “Great—­ guns!”

But Geraldine said nothing.  She only closed the magazine and pushed it under the pillow out of sight.  There was a long silence.  A first star appeared and threw a wavering trail on the lake.  Jimmie, dipping his paddle mechanically, turned the Peterboro into this pale pathway.  The pride and elation had gone out of his face.  His mouth drooped disconsolately.

“And you called this your proudest day,” he broke out at last.

An unexpected gentleness crept over the Society Editor’s countenance.  “It would be great to help create a city,” she said then.  “To start with it ourselves, at the foundations and grow.”  And she added very softly, with a little break in her voice:  “I’ve decided to resign and go to Weatherbee.”