ing her game board and play with him Steve released a broad
grin as he pictured Constantine in his helpless captive state
welcoming Trudy as an entertainer about as much as he would have
begged for a tete-a-tete with a lady major bent on conquest.

"She would even marry him if she could dispose of Gay," he thought,
and rightly, as he watched her.

As she was telling him of the head-dress party she intended to give
for Gay's birthday and how he must come because she wanted him to wear
a pirate turban, in came Mary, much flurried over a mistake made in a
shipment, and her nose guilty of a slight but unmistakable shine.

"Oh, Trudy! Run home--your house is on fire! Your cretonnes will
burn!" she said, half in earnest. "My dear child, I'm mighty busy. It
is so stupid of Parker!" She turned to Steve. "He made the original
error and I have to keep cross-examining everyone else to prove to him
that I know he is at fault and that he must 'fess up. But he
won't--people never want to say: 'Yes, it is my fault and I'm sorry,'
do they?"

"Sort of habit since the Garden of Eden, I guess--you can't expect it
to change now." Steve had lost his listless air. All unconsciously he
had the same animated, interested attitude that he had had during the
days of being engaged to the Gorgeous Girl. Trudy saw at a glance that
Mary had not only realized her starved hopes but that she was quite
ignorant of the fact that she had done so. To Trudy's mind it was a
most stupid situation; also an inexcusable one. Here was Mary, the
good-looking thing who deserved a love such as Steve O'Valley's yet
never dared to hope he would ever think of her twice except if she
asked for a raise in salary. This Trudy knew, also. And since it is
inevitable that a cave man cannot exist on truffles, chiffon frocks
that must not be rumpled, and an interior decorator with a ukulele at
his beck and call, Steve had been forced into realizing Mary's worth
and loving her for it, giving to her the mature and steady love of a
strong man who, like Parker, had made a mistake and not yet 'fessed
up. Why Mary did not realize that happiness was within her reach, and
why Steve did not realize that Mary adored him, and why they were not
in the throes of talking over her lawyer and my lawyer and alimony but
we love each other and let the whole world go hang--was not within
Trudy's jurisdiction to determine. She only knew what she would have
done and be doing were she Mary--and St