d, querulously. "You never used to
look at the men. The way you acted when you first run round with me,
I thought you sure was a suffragette. And then you met this young
Gilder--and--good-night, nurse!"

The hardness remained in Mary's face, as she continued to regard her
friend. But, now, there was something quizzical in the glance with which
she accompanied the monosyllable:

"Well?"

Again, Aggie shook her head in perplexity.

"His old man sends you up for a stretch for something you didn't do--and
you take up with his son like----"

"And yet you don't understand!" There was scorn for such gross stupidity
in the musical voice.

Aggie choked a little from the cigarette smoke, as she gave a gasp when
suspicion of the truth suddenly dawned on her slow intelligence.

"My Gawd!" Her voice came in a treble shriek of apprehension. "I'm
wise!"

"But you must understand this," Mary went on, with an authoritative
note in her voice. "Whatever may be between young Gilder and me is to be
strictly my own affair. It has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of
you, or with our schemes for money-making. And, what is more, Agnes, I
don't want to talk about it. But----"

"Yes?" queried Aggie, encouragingly, as the other paused. She hopefully
awaited further confidences.

"But I do want to know," Mary continued with some severity, "what
you meant by talking in the public street yesterday with a common
pickpocket."

Aggie's childlike face changed swiftly its expression from a sly
eagerness to sullenness.

"You know perfectly well, Mary Turner," she cried indignantly, "that
I only said a few words in passin' to my brother Jim. And he ain't no
common pickpocket. Hully Gee! He's the best dip in the business."

"But you must not be seen speaking with him," Mary directed, with a
certain air of command now become habitual to her among the members of
her clique. "My cousin, Miss Agnes Lynch, must be very careful as to her
associates."

The volatile Agnes was restored to good humor by some subtle quality in
the utterance, and a family pride asserted itself.

"He just stopped me to say it's been the best year he ever had," she
explained, with ostentatious vanity.

Mary appeared sceptical.

"How can that be," she demanded, "when the dead line now is John
Street?"

"The dead line!" Aggie scoffed. A peal of laughter rang merrily from her
curving lips.

"Why, Jim takes lunch every day in the Wall Street Delmonico's. Yes,"