om her like a
burden whose straps are slit.

When Nicky said: "I could not find you in New York. Now we are here we
can have a little talkink," she stammered: "Not here! Not now!"

"Why not, pleass?"

"I have an engagement--a friend--she has just gone to telephone a
moment."

"You are ashamed of me, then?"

She let him have it. "Yes!"

He winced at the slap in the face.

She went on: "Besides, she knows you. Her husband is an officer in the
army. I can't talk to you here."

"Where, then, and when?"

"Any time--any place--but here."

"Any time is no time. You tell me, or I stay now."

"Come to--to my house."

"You have a howiss, then?"

"Yes. I just took it to-day. I shall be there this afternoon--at
three, if you will go."

"Very goot. The address is--"

She gave it; he repeated it, mumbled, "At sree o'clock I am there,"
and glided away just as Polly returned.

They were eating a consomme madrilene when the Major arrived. He
dutifully ate what his wife had selected for him, and listened amiably
to what she had to tell him about her morning, though he was bursting
to tell her about his. Polly made a vivid picture of Marie Louise's
new home, ending with:

"Everything on God's earth in it except a piano and a book."

This reminded Marie Louise of the books she had read on ship-building,
and she asked if she might borrow them. Polly made a woeful face at
this.

"My dear! When a woman starts to reading up on a subject a man is
interested in, she's lost--and so is he. Beware of it, my dear."

Tom demurred: "Go right on, Marie Louise, so that you can take an
intelligent interest in what your husband is working on."

"My husband!" said Marie Louise. "Aren't you both a trifle premature?"

Polly went glibly on: "Don't listen to Tom, my dear. What does he know
about what a man wants his wife to take an intelligent interest in?
Once a woman knows about her husband's business, he's finished with
her and ready for the next. Tom's been trying to tell me for ten years
what he's working at, and I haven't the faintest idea yet. It always
gives him something to hope for. When he comes home of evenings he can
always say, 'Perhaps to-night's the night when she'll listen.' But
once you listen intelligently and really understand, he's through with
you, and he'll quit you for some pink-cheeked ignoramus who hasn't
heard about it yet."

Marie Louise, being a woman, knew how to get her message to another
woman; t