that element from
their make-up and they're all round first-rate fellows."

"I dare say you're right," he answered, and thought of Perry Bridewell,
"but why do you select this instant," he added humorously, "to formulate
your philosophy of sex?"

Her earnestness fled and she leaned back in her chair laughing. "Oh, I
don't know--perhaps--because one doesn't like to lose an aphorism even
if it pops into one's head at the wrong time."

Then as he rose to go she pressed his hand with a grip that was almost
boyish. "How I wish you liked me half as much as I like you," she said.

"I do--I shall always," he responded in his whimsical manner. "There's
absolutely no limit to my liking--only I know it would be the surest way
to bore you to death."

She laughed a little wearily. "It would be so nice to be really liked,"
she pursued. "Nobody likes me. A good many have loved me in one way or
another, but I want to be just liked."

He saw the pathetic little frown gather between her brows, and in spite
of the pain in his own heart, he felt a profound and pitiful sympathy.
"Well, we'll make a compact upon it," he declared, holding her hand for
an instant in his hearty grasp. "I promise to like you until you tell me
frankly that you're bored."

The eager child quality he seldom saw was in her look and she was about
to make some impulsive answer to his words, when there was the sound of
a heavy step outside the door and they heard the next instant Perry's
hilarious voice.

"Well, I'm jolly glad you kept him, Gerty, but, by Jove, I wonder how
you hit it off. He's not your sort, you know."

The child quality vanished instantly from her face, and Adams watched
the mocking insolence creep back upon her lips.

"On the other hand we're perfectly agreed," she said. "I don't confine
my admiration to your type, you know."

"You don't, eh? Well, that's a good joke!" exclaimed Perry, with a break
into his not unpleasant, though sensual laugh. As he stood, squaring his
handsome chest, in the centre of the room, Adams felt that the mere
animal splendour of the man had never been more impressive.

"I find to my great pleasure that Mrs. Bridewell and I are very good
friends," remarked Adams, after a moment in which he had taken in
Perry's full magnificence with his humorous short-sighted gaze, "and she
has promised on the strength of it to extend to me the favour of her
protection. No, I can't stay now," he added, in answer to Perry's
p