of phrase, those little feathers
of speech which she knew would tempt him to rise to the surface of
his mood. In a few moments, he was entertaining them with his tirades
against conventional institutions.

"Conventionality," he exclaimed; "I'd sooner have the honest vice
of the man who pleads guilty; I'd a thousand times sooner defend his
case, than urge for a woman who just holds on to the virtue of
conventionality with the tips of her fingers."

"You gave that lady a bad time the other day, Mr. Traill," said Miss
Standish-Roe, admiringly.

"I did? Which one?"

"The lady who admitted to kissing the co-respondent."

"Why, you weren't in the court, were you?"

"No--but I read it in the paper--your sister told me about it."

Mrs. Durlacher looked apprehensively to her brother's eyes. From so
small a thing as that he might unearth suspicion. But a pardonable
vanity was touched in him. He turned no ground to find the intentions
that lay beneath.

"Well, _there_ was a case," he said. "I've no doubt the woman was
innocent of the worst; but that was an exact case of the virtue of
conventionality. She'd just hung on to it, scraping her nails. She
deserved all she got."

"And you persisted in trying to prove her guilty?" said Miss
Standish-Roe, in amazement. "When you thought her innocent?"

"Why not?" he retorted. "Society wants to be purged of that sort of
woman, and it's full of 'em."

Mrs. Durlacher deftly changed the subject.

"I've got a box to-morrow night, Jack, at some theatre or other,"
she said casually. "Harold's going out to dinner, will you dine with
us and drag us along there?"

"Who's us?"

"Miss Standish-Roe and myself. We shall be all alone if you don't."

Sally's face rose in Traill's mind. If he went, this would be the
first evening, except for those engagements which his profession
demanded, on which he would have left her to dine at a restaurant
by herself. But was he bound? Not in the least! The consideration
that it might even seem to an outsider, decided him.

"Yes, I'll come," he said. "What time dinner?"

Again there was exultation in the heart of Mrs. Durlacher.

"Better be seven-thirty," she said.

He agreed. It never suggested itself to him that he wanted to go.
He hated to seem bound. That was his reason. So he took it with an
open mind, questioning nothing.

When he had gone, Mrs. Durlacher turned to her friend.

"You can come--can't you?" she asked.

Miss Standish-Ro