The Odds

nder his direct look. "Do you--do you really want to know what I think?" she said.

"I do." There was something uncompromising in the brief rejoinder, yet somehow she did not find him formidable.

She answered him without difficulty in spite of her embarrassment. "I think, then, that it isn't you yourself at all that I feel like that about. It's just your profession."

"Ah!" He began to smile again. "Once live down that, and I might be possible. Is that it?"

She nodded, still flushed, yet curiously not uneasy. "Something like that. Why can't you be a farmer like Jack?"

"I wish I were," he said, unexpectedly.

"Why?" The word slipped out almost in spite of her, but she felt she must have an answer.

He answered her with his eyes full on her. "Because I'd like to lead the sort of life you would approve of," he said. "I've a notion it would be worth while."

She turned aside from his look. "It's only a matter of opinion, of course," she said.

"Is it?" he said. He turned his attention to the