er dressing-gown embroidering peonies on a lambrequin and aired her grievances. Kate, writing notes at the old-fashioned black walnut writing desk, looked up a

living in other people's houses, never bringing any company home, but you can't even be decently civil when you are at home. We might just as well be a hotel for all the respect

king care of myself," she said. "At any r

er of an opponent's rapier to thro

ou every chance to take me along. When first you began goi

til I had made my own way," Kate vouchs

as the tap root of her spy system over her daughter. By it, she picked up things; learned what this irresponsible responsibility of hers was doing. Mrs. Waddington h

note number one. This mention of the name was significant. The discreet

very short r

k it's time I worked at my job as confidant. What

zed though as it was, noted the sparkle in Kate's voice. But for the intervening door

olt! Did I catch it? You're a poor dissembler. You're t

otionally at the telephone, that she must have a look. She rose, therefore, 179 and crossed past the open

aressing voice, "Then you need a confidant. Zinkand'

aughter was come back into

were getting somewhere. But here you are, nearly twenty-four years old and goodness knows if you've had a young man, I don't hear

m across the wrinkled skin and old lace of her mother's throat. Mrs. Waddington resisted for a moment, her head turn

said Kate,

on. "Girls will be girls, I suppose, and they've got to l

er mother's forehead and

nized the olive-green tailor suit which he had come to know, he noticed the firm yet gracile move of her. As she came

in a kind of

n't she

trength, on exquisitely sloping shoulders: and the taste-he would have called it so-of her dress! A discriminating woman might have noticed that her costume bordered 181 on ostentatiou

just proposed to another girl. The though

Street terminus, to watch those tripping, gaily-dressed, laughing Californian women thronging the belt of city light from the theatre canopy to the restaurant canopy-ah, that was 182 San Francisco! Not Paris, not Buenos Ayres-they say who have travelled far-could show such a procession of Dianaides, such a Greek festival of joy in the smooth, vigorous body and the things which feed and clothe it. With that absence of public conventionality which was another ear-mark of the old city, all sorts and conditions of men and women sat side by side at the tables. Harlots, or those who might well pass

it was no more than a lunching place. Cheste

her gloves and let one white hand, still creased in pink w

e said, "but for a man who was turned down

ons chase themselves over hi

he matter

e so refused you as to ma

was. I'd have something to go on. It's-it's like tryin

herself above you-that sh

, sat with the menu card, which he had b

me good and hard that way. I g

rom your little passage with the 184 Chinese waiter? It

stared a

and get things before they come to yo

o tell me any more than it's right for you

fool I came out with it. What's the use of telling what she said or what I said? It was just the same way. She kept me dancing. Sh

out as though he had put a question to h

ure

at least a little-s

not forget the needs of his body. 185 The waiter stood

o know ev

with-Bert Cheste

ask for

fortune. It's splendid the way you worked to get all these things. I know the story of how you got through college. Everyone who knows you is proud of that. But-well Eleanor's mother was rich and proud before she married, and her

lly a part of you. You're only two 186 years out of college, hardly that; and you're still studying law; but think how people have t

made no move to an

der and delicate as she can be, and she has high ideals-that's one result of her living away from the world. If she were a little warmer

of a diamond or a sapphire or some

at this point and plucked at a p

hat I don't know? Where

me of the fi

e 187 color had risen in his cheeks

as we go on-provided you

ing for-but I'd blame

y. Servants are just conveniences to them, like dumb waiters. So of course,-even if it was only a Chinaman-s

exion reddened with

she said that she was afraid I'd hurt his feelings. S

't like to see you put your

s straight over the

ached over to

erself must know-how splendid and able 188

in some i

e said, "but this is the first time it

strongest gentlemen I ever knew. Anyone need only see you for five minutes to know you're that. But some people have certain things which

roke so suddenly, came ba

ranch and went to college in the first place. I wan

u are a

ok his

r who. I'm going to amount to something. 189 I'm going to be rich, too-and a darn sight q

here to talk about you-

You see, I might just as well get admitted, and then it is good-bye to law for me afterwards unless I use it in politics. Law-" Bertram rammed his finger on the table with each word that followed "law is too blame slow. Anyone could see that I couldn't be chasing

very promisi

oing to take it for a throw-down, and ho

fact, she was considering a great

ide, for a man has a right to change his employment, hasn't he? And I'm sure you have more than returned your little salary. On the whole, I don't know but it would be better fo

ut

ve much inducement 191 to offer her! When you consider marriage, you have to remember that a girl like Eleanor can't live on a trifle. I'd follow my own career. It isn't, you see, as though there were anyone else in the field. Other men come to the ho

e you ever heard

swer came

d. I'm in a peculiar position about it. You see, her talk, as it happens, is all twisted up in a confidence she made to me-something else in her life-

nt-" with the air of one who wo

break something in that delicate nature of hers. Don't woo. Serve. Don't even see her too often. Don't renew that scene on the balcony-never make that mistake again. Whe

ea program," said B

om the scaffold you're going to say something ori

ke again on B

me to it." His smile had caught Kate's laugh, and there came between them a kind o

have you to talk it over with. And you really do understand

drooped her eyes and let her pin

nd experienc

ld you tell

ith an air of s

other time, we'll have that all out together. You see, when one has held a thing in her heart f

hey went through the formalities of checks and wraps, she talked foolish noth

st chums in the world," h

ed we

athlete. But just before he set his foot on the platform and looked back at her, she herself whirled and started d