e begged.

"You have given me," he assured her, "an insight into many things in
life which I had found most perplexing. You see, you have traveled and
I haven't. You have mixed with all classes of people, and I have gone
steadily on in one groove. You have told me many things which I shall
find very useful indeed later on."

"Dear me," she laughed, "you are making me quite conceited!"

"Anyhow," he replied, "I don't want you to look upon me, Beatrice, in
any way as a benefactor. I am much more comfortable here than at the
boarding-house and it is costing no more money, especially since you
began to get those singing engagements. By the way, hadn't you better go
and get ready?"

She smothered a sigh as she turned away and went slowly upstairs. To
all appearance, no person who ever breathed was more ordinary than this
strong-featured, self-centered young man who had put out his arm and
snatched her from the Maelstrom. Yet it seemed to her that there
was something almost unnatural about his unapproachability. She was
convinced that he was entirely honest, not only with regard to his
actual relations toward her, but with regard to all his purposes.
Her sex did not even seem to exist for him. The fact that she was
good-looking, and with her renewed health daily becoming more so,
seemed to be of no account to him whatever. He showed interest in her
appearance sometimes, but it was interest of an entirely impersonal
sort. He simply expressed himself as satisfied or dissatisfied, as a
matter of taste. It came to her at that moment that she had never seen
him really relax. Only when he sat opposite to that great map which hung
now in the further room, and wandered about from section to section
with a pencil in one hand and a piece of rubber in another, did he show
anything which in any way approached enthusiasm, and even then it was
always the unmistakable enthusiasm born of dead things. Suddenly she
laughed at herself in the little mirror, laughed softly but heartily.
This was the guardian whom Fate had sent for her! If Elizabeth had only
understood!

CHAPTER VII. Mr. PRITCHARD OF NEW YORK

Later in the evening, Beatrice and Tavernake traveled together in a
motor omnibus from their rooms at Chelsea to Northumberland Avenue.
Tavernake was getting quite used to the programme by now. They sat in a
dimly-lit waiting-room until the time came for Beatrice to sing. Every
now and then an excitable little person who was t