m."

"Where did you come across him?"

"He is the new member of our firm. I told you about him long ago. The
good-looking one. He has been with us six months, but I am just getting
acquainted with him. We had luncheon together to-day, and he told me
about it. He doesn't like social butterflies at all, he likes clever,
practical girls, with high ideals, and--"

"Like you, of course."

"Yes, of course. I explained my theory to him, and he was perfectly
enchanted with it. But he could not quite grasp it all in those few
minutes--it is rather deep, you know--and so he is coming up to dinner
to-night to make a thorough study of it. He feels it is his one last
hope, and if it fails him, he is lost in the sea of a loveless marriage."

"I do not object to your fishing him out of the loveless sea," Nolan said
plaintively. "But I do object to his eating the steak you promised me."

"Think of the cause," she begged. "Think of the glory of winning another
duty-bound soul to the boundless principles of freedom. Think of--"

"I can't think of anything, Eveley," he said sadly, "except that
good-looking fellow eating my steak, cooked by the hands of my er--girl."

As a matter of fact, he took it very seriously. For while he was still
firmly wedded to his ideal of fame and fortune, he was unceasingly
haunted by the fearful nightmare of some interloper "beating his time,"
as he crudely but patently expressed it.

He spent a long and dreary evening, followed by other evenings equally
long and dreary, for the Good-Looking Young Member found great difficulty
in mastering the intricacies of a Dutiless Life, and Eveley continued his
education with the greatest patience, and some degree of pleasure.

Her interest in the pursuit of motors did not wane, however, and after
trying every known make of car, and investigating the advance reports of
all cars designed for manufacture in the early future, she blithely
invested her fortune in a sturdy blue Rollsmobile, and was immediately
enraptured with the sensation of absolute control of a throbbing engine.

She found it no trifling matter to attend to her regular duties as
private secretary, to keep her Cloud Cote dainty and sweet as of yore, to
be out in her little blue car on every possible occasion, and still not
neglect the Good-Looking Member and the Father-in-law in her campaign
against duty.

First of all, she invited the elder Mr. Severs to dinner, and forestalled
his refusal by