id Ethel, more subtly personal than Grace
thought necessary; so she pushed back her chair and took up her gloves.

"Same table, same time--to-morrow?" H. R. said this to Grace so that
Ethel could hear it.

"No," said Grace.

"Very well," he said, meekly. "I'll be here just the same--in case."

She shook her head. Ethel, who was carefully not looking, saw her do it.

Grace did not appear the next day, but Ethel did, properly accompanied
by her own mother. They walked toward the northeast corner, on their way
to a near-by table. H. R. rose and approached them.

"Just in time," he said to them. "Thursday always was my lucky day."

They sat down. To the waiter he said:

"Tell the chef--for three; for me."

"Yes, Mr. Rutgers," said the waiter, very deferentially.

"What have you up your sleeve, Mrs. Vandergilt? And how near is
victory?"

"You mean--"

"The Cause!" said H. R., reverently.

"I never heard you express an opinion," said Mrs. Vandergilt,
suspiciously.

"You have expressed them for me far better than I could. Mine isn't a
deep or philosophical mind," he apologized to the mind that was. "I
merely understand publicity and how sheeplike men are."

"If you understand that, you understand a great deal," remarked Mrs.
Vandergilt, sententiously.

"Grace thought--" began H. R., and caught himself in time. "You haven't
talked to her about it?"

"Grace?"

"Miss Goodchild."

"No. Why should I?"

"No reason--only that she has what I, as a practical man, in my low-brow
way, think is a winner. Of course the suffrage has long since passed the
polemical stage. The question does not admit of argument. The right is
admitted by all men. But what all men don't admit is the wrong. And all
men don't admit it, because all women don't."

"That is true," said Mrs. Vandergilt, vindictively.

"Any woman," pursued H. R., earnestly, "can make any man give her
anything she wants. Therefore, if all the women wanted all the men to
give them anything, the men would give it. A woman can't always take
something from a man; but she can always get it. To put it on the high
plane of taking it as a right may be noble; but what I want is results.
So long as I get results, nothing short of murder, lying, or ignoble
wheedling can stop me. Grace and I went all over that; but she seems to
have lost interest--"

"Yes, she has," confirmed Ethel, so amiably that H. R. smiled
gratefully; and that annoyed Ethel.

"You have asked