s in Paris--and later I
may do some motoring in Switzerland an Italy."

She laughed a little in the mere enjoyment of putting her plans into
words and Moffatt laughed too, but with an edge of sarcasm.

"I see--I see: everything's changed, as you say, and your husband can
blow you off to the trip. Well, I hope you'll have a first-class time."

Their glances crossed again, and something in his cool scrutiny impelled
Undine to say, with a burst of candour: "If I do, you know, I shall owe
it all to you!"

"Well, I always told you I meant to act white by you," he answered.

They walked on in silence, and presently he began again in his usual
joking strain: "See what one of the Apex girls has been up to?"

Apex was too remote for her to understand the reference, and he went on:
"Why, Millard Binch's wife--Indiana Frusk that was. Didn't you see in
the papers that Indiana'd fixed it up with James J. Rolliver to marry
her? They say it was easy enough squaring Millard Binch--you'd know it
WOULD be--but it cost Roliver near a million to mislay Mrs. R. and the
children. Well, Indiana's pulled it off, anyhow; she always WAS a bright
girl. But she never came up to you."

"Oh--" she stammered with a laugh, astonished and agitated by his news.
Indiana Frusk and Rolliver! It showed how easily the thing could be
done. If only her father had listened to her! If a girl like Indiana
Frusk could gain her end so easily, what might not Undine have
accomplished? She knew Moffatt was right in saying that Indiana had
never come up to her...She wondered how the marriage would strike Van
Degen...

She signalled to a cab and they walked toward it without speaking.
Undine was recalling with intensity that one of Indiana's shoulders was
higher than the other, and that people in Apex had thought her lucky to
catch Millard Binch, the druggist's clerk, when Undine herself had cast
him off after a lingering engagement. And now Indiana Frusk was to be
Mrs. James J. Rolliver!

Undine got into the cab and bent forward to take little Paul.

Moffatt lowered his charge with exaggerated care, and a "Steady there,
steady," that made the child laugh; then, stooping over, he put a kiss
on Paul's lips before handing him over to his mother.

XIX

"The Parisian Diamond Company--Anglo-American branch."

Charles Bowen, seated, one rainy evening of the Paris season, in a
corner of the great Nouveau Luxe restaurant, was lazily trying to
resolve his imp