raction. About noon, on
the day following the party for Bedient, Mrs. Wordling appeared in the
breakfast room, and sat down at the table with Kate Wilkes, who was
having her coffee.

"What an extraordinary evening we had," the actress remarked. "David's
party was surely a success."

"Rather," assented Miss Wilkes, who felt old and nettled. She seemed of
endless length, and one would suppose that her clothes were designed so
that not one bone should be missed. Mrs. Wordling was not an especial
favorite with her.

"They made it up beautifully between them, didn't they?" the actress
observed, as she squeezed orange-juice into her spoon.

"What?"

"That story."

"Who?"

"Why, that story--that friendship, storm-at-sea, Equatoria story--done
jointly by Messrs. Cairns and Bedient."

"You think they rehearsed it, then?" Kate Wilkes asked softly.

"Why, of course. It unfolded like a story--each piling on clever
enthusiasm for the other."

There was a slight pause.

"And so you think David Cairns simulated that fine touch, about
discovering through his friend, what damage New York was doing him?"
Kate Wilkes' manner was lightly reflective.

"Of course. Don't you remember how he stumbled until you helped him
going?"

"You think--as I understand it----" Miss Wilkes had become queerly
penetrative, and spoke in a way that made one think of a beetle being
pinned through the thorax, "----that David Cairns merely used his
artistic intelligence for our entertainment; that Andrew Bedient is
merely an interesting type of sailor and wanderer who has struck it
rich?"

"Why, yes, Kate, that's the way it got over to me. We all know David
Cairns is selling everything he writes at a top-figure; that he is
eminently successful, quite the thing in many periodicals, finely
pleased with himself as a successful man----"

"Wordling," said Kate Wilkes, leaning toward her, "what kind of people
do you associate with in your work?"

"The best, dear,--always the best. People who think, and who love their
work."

Slowly and without passion the elder woman now delivered herself:

"People who _think_ they think and who love themselves!... I have tried
to make myself believe you were different. You are not different,
Wordling. You are true to your kind, and not distinguished from them.
David Cairns never rehearsed a part with Andrew Bedient. Men as full of
real things as these two do not need rehearsals. Bedient came up from
his Isla