sip
from his tall, frosted glass, quite unconscious of any distaste for it.
On the contrary, she experienced a slight exhilaration which was
gradually becoming delightful to her.

"Scotch-and-soda is rather nice, after all," she observed. "I had no
idea--_What_ is the matter with you, Duane?"

"You haven't swallowed all that, have you?"

"Yes, is it much?"

He stared, then with a shrug: "You'd better cut out that sort of thing."

"What?" she asked, surprised.

"What you're doing."

"Tasting your Scotch? Pooh!" she said, "it isn't strong. Do you think
I'm a baby?"

"Go ahead," he said, "it's your funeral."

Legs crossed, chin resting on the butt of his riding-crop, he lay back
in his chair watching her.

Women of her particular type had always fascinated him; Fifth Avenue is
thronged with them in sunny winter mornings--tall, slender, faultlessly
gowned girls, free-limbed, narrow of wrist and foot; cleanly built,
engaging, fearless-eyed; and Geraldine was one of a type characteristic
of that city and of the sunny Avenue where there pass more beautiful
women on a December morning than one can see abroad in half a dozen
years' residence.

How on earth this hemisphere has managed to evolve them out of its
original material nobody can explain. And young Mallett, recently from
the older hemisphere, was still in a happy trance of surprise at the
discovery.

Lounging there, watching her where she sat warmly illumined by the
golden light of the window-shade, he said lazily:

"Do you know that Fifth Avenue is always thronged with you, Geraldine?
I've nearly twisted my head off trying not to miss the assorted visions
of you which float past afoot or driving. Some day one of them will
unbalance me. I'll leap into her victoria, ask her if she'd mind the
temporary inconvenience of being adored by a stranger; and if she's a
good sport she'll take a chance. Don't you think so?"

"It's more than I'd take with you," said the girl.

"You've said that several times."

He laughed, then looked up at her half humorously, half curiously.

"_You_ would be taking no chances, Geraldine."

"I'd be taking chances of finding you holding some other girl's hands
within twenty-four hours. And you know it."

"Hasn't anybody ever held yours?"

Displeasure tinted her cheeks a deeper red, but she merely shrugged her
shoulders.

It was true that in the one evanescent and secret affair of her first
winter she had not escaped the c