wife, and asked her how she
had managed herself.

"'I,' she answered, with feminine scorn, 'I was turned away from three
hotels, before I finally understood your generous metropolitan hotel
rules, which doom traveling women to the police-stations for lodging. I
should have walked the streets, if I had not met a friend who
generously took me home with her.'

"'I hope you slept well,' I ventured, miserably.

"'I did not! Her apartments were 'way up at the top of a big, high
building; and, just as I got to sleep, there was a frightful banging at
the door, and a man--a drunken man, evidently--shouted to be let in.
"Tom," he howled, "Tom, get up! Let me in! I want to see you; it's
important. Let me in!" Now, of course, there was no "Tom" there, so I
just lay quiet, frightened to death, however; and, at last, the drunken
brute went away. But I did not sleep a wink, thanks to you and your
indifference toward my safety, and your devotion to creatures who get
black eyes. Oh, I'll tell your wife! I'll let her know!'

"We were under a street-lamp, and I pulled her to a stop, turning her
around, so that the light shone squarely on her face.

"'Maud,' I said, and I shook my forefinger at her, 'you will not tell
my wife. You will be a good and humble young woman during your stay
with us; yes, you will. You will be very discreet and very forgiving.
If you are not, I shall tell your husband that you spent last night in
the apartments of my friend Tom, your old lover.'

"And did you ever see a woman blush, my boy?--not the blush she puts on
at will, but a blush that is genuinely in earnest--a blush she cannot
help. I had my revenge as I watched her blush. She blushed in seven
colors--every color in the spectrum. Then she turned loose on Tom--an
honorable fellow, poor devil, sleeping in that cold garret for her
sake--and scourged him for telling me.

"But I stopped her with the information that I was the drunken brute
who had banged on the door, to which I added the fiction that I had
seen her go in.

"Well, we patched up a truce before we reached home, and we are good
friends to-day. Tom married her, after her husband died; and, to this
day, he is somewhat embarrassed in my presence, feeling, no doubt, that
I do not forgive his heartlessness to me on that night. I cannot
explain, and, somehow, his wife will not. I don't know why, unless it
is because she has a generous streak in her makeup, and thinks that it
will involve rev