d, and the
natural depression of impotence did not overcome the exhilaration of
curiosity.

When she reached Washington Square again, she said something of this to
Miss Wardrop, who nodded comprehendingly.

"Every one feels that way for a time," she said; "it's like sitting out a
cotillion by one's self. What you need is something or somebody to pull
you into the whirl."

"I suppose that is so," agreed the girl,--"but where am I to find it--or
him? I don't know anybody who is in. Of course I have Uncle Silas's
letter to Mr. Wintermuth, but I didn't really know whether I'd have the
courage to use it or not."

"Who may Mr. Wintermuth be?" demanded her aunt.

"A friend of Uncle Silas, and the President of the Guardian Fire
Insurance Company."

"Fire Insurance? A fire insurance company? Wait one moment.
Jenks. . . . Jenks! Bring me that envelope from the mantelpiece. . . .
No," she added, "my policy is not in the Guardian. I thought perhaps it
might be."

"What is the matter?" inquired her niece. "Have you had a fire?"

"Yes, I have," returned her aunt, "or rather Jenks has. He burned off
the lamp shade from my reading lamp. And Jane Vanderdecken says because
he did it out of sheer clumsiness I cannot ask the company to pay for it."

Helen remembered the shade in question, which had been in the eyes of all
save its owner a horror upon horrors, a mausoleum preserving, apparently
for all time, the ghastly glories of a dead era of alleged ornamentation.
So it was with dubious sympathy that she said:--

"I don't know whether Jane Vanderdecken is right or not."

"You can go and find out. Mr. What's-his-name can tell you, even if it
isn't his company that will have to pay."

And in this way it came about that Helen found herself, not many days
later, descending from the Elevated Station at Cortlandt Street, and
turning her steps eastward toward William Street. It was half-past ten
when she found herself before a portal on which were the words: The
Guardian Fire Insurance Company of the City of New York.

Intrusting herself to the deliberate conveyance of the elevator, she
arrived eventually at the top floor, and to a clerk near the door she
expressed her desire to see Mr. James Wintermuth. One of the principal
assets of this employee was his readiness to assume an expression, when
any one inquired for the President, suggestive that in his opinion such a
desire could scarcely be expected by the visito