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ALONE in the dimly lighted room, Abner Teeftallow, even if he was, as he admitted, "ordinary," still realized that a remarkable thing had happened. A girl of the hills had asserted the validity of sex along with the other values of life. When in doubt as to her own emotions, Adelaide had frankly experimented. Reared as Abner had been amid the shamed and secretive treatment of sex, Adelaide's attitude toward it was like a fresh breeze blowing through a swamp. Clearly she belonged to herself and would find happiness in any way she could.

Very probably at this moment she was in the ballroom, making a decision against him, promising to marry the other man. This thought brought a twinge in Abner's chest. The notion of losing her was painful. Yet while Adelaide dazzled him, still, after all, the stolid hillman felt there was something absurd about her gesture. A courtship could not be conducted like a shopping tour. A girl could not go around trying on man after man, like gloves. . . .

In this mood Abner crossed mechanically to the door which Adelaide had pointed out and entered without knocking. He did not think of knocking. In the hills intramural signals are not used. When a hillman enters a house—he is in it.

The teamster found himself standing in a large library looking at the huge back of Railroad Jones. The magnate was in his shirt sleeves wearing a fresh striped shirt that puffed up between the cross of his suspenders and gave him a freshly bathed look. He was standing beside a cabinet filled with mineral specimens and held a reddish-looking stone in his hand. The fat man dominated his library com-