y her."

"But how on earth has it happened that I never heard a whisper of this
preposterous thing?"

"It _is_ extraordinary. Sometimes the one interested is the last to hear
what every one is talking about."

"Well, I never was so--amused!" Yet Mrs. Carshaw's wintry smile was not
joyous. "Rex! I must laugh him out of it, if I meet him anywhere!"

"That you will not succeed in doing, I think."

"Well, then I'll frown him out of it. This is why--I see all now."

"There you are hardly wise, to think of either laughing or frowning him
out of it," said Meiklejohn, offering her worldly wisdom. "No, in such
cases there is a better way, take my word for it."

"And that is?"

"Approach the girl. Avoid carefully saying one word to the young man,
but approach _the girl_. That does it, if the girl is at all decent, and
has any sensibility. Lay the facts plainly before her. Take her into
your confidence--this flatters her. Invoke her love for the young man
whom she is hurting by her intimacy with him--this puts her on her
honor. Urge her to fly from him--this makes her feel herself a martyr,
and turns her on the heroic tack. That is certainly what I should do if
I were you, and I should do it without delay."

"You're right. I'll do it," said Mrs. Carshaw. "Do you happen to know
where this girl is to be found?"

"No. I think I can tell, though, from whom you might get the
address--Helen Tower. I heard your son talking to her last night about
the girl. He was wanting to know whether Helen could put him in the way
of placing her on the stage."

"What! Is she one of those scheming chorus-girls?"

"It appears so."

"But has he had the effrontery to mention her in this way to other
ladies? It is rather amusing! Why, it used to be said that Helen Tower
was his _belle amie_."

"All the more reason, perhaps, why she may be willing to give you the
address, if she knows it."

"I'll see her this very afternoon."

"Then I must leave you at leisure now," said Meiklejohn sympathetically.

An hour later Mrs. Carshaw was with Helen Tower, and the name of
Winifred Bartlett arose between them.

"But he did not give me her address," said Mrs. Tower. "Do you want it
pressingly?"

"Why, yes. Have you not heard that there is a question of marriage?"

"Good gracious! Marriage?"

The two women laid their heads nearer together, enjoying the awfulness
of the thing, though one was a mother and the other was pricked with
jealousy in