port marriages. Not necessarily for publication, but as a
guarantee of good faith," she explained.

"I don't understand," said I, affecting denseness, for I understood only
too well.

"Stupid!" cried Henriette. "I need a confidential maid, Bunny, to help
us in our business, and I don't want to take a third party in at random.
If you had a wife I could trust her. You could stay married as long as
we needed her, and then, following the Newport plan, you could get rid
of her and marry me later--that is--er--provided I was willing to marry
you at all, and I am not so sure that I shall not be some day, when I am
old and toothless."

"I fail to see the necessity for a maid of that kind," said I.

"That's because you are a man, Bunny," said Henriette. "There are
splendid opportunities for acquiring the gems these Newport ladies wear
by one who may be stationed in the dressing-room. There is Mrs.
Rockerbilt's tiara, for instance. It is at present the finest thing of
its kind in existence and of priceless value. When she isn't wearing it
it is kept in the vaults of the Tiverton Trust Company, and how on earth
we are to get it without the assistance of a maid we can trust I don't
see--except in the vulgar, commonplace way of sandbagging the lady and
brutally stealing it, and Newport society hasn't quite got to the point
where you can do a thing like that to a woman without causing talk,
unless you are married to her."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing, Henriette," I returned, with more
positiveness than I commonly show, "I will not marry a lady's maid, and
that's all there is about it. You forget that I am a gentleman."

"It's only a temporary arrangement, Bunny," she pleaded. "It's done all
the time in the smart set."

"Well, the morals of the smart set are not my morals," I retorted. "My
father was a clergyman, Henriette, and I'm something of a churchman
myself, and I won't stoop to such baseness. Besides, what's to prevent
my wife from blabbing when we try to ship her?"

"H'm!" mused Henriette. "I hadn't thought of that--it would be
dangerous, wouldn't it?"

"Very," said I. "The only safe way out of it would be to kill the young
woman, and my religious scruples are strongly against anything of the
sort. You must remember, Henriette, that there are one or two of the
commandments that I hold in too high esteem to break them."

"Then what shall we do, Bunny?" demanded Mrs. Van Raffles. "_I must have
that tiara._"

"We