s Mary Wardrop was a lady in whom discretion was held in but
lukewarm esteem. Had this not been so, she would have doubtless
interposed, for convention's sake at least, in the swiftly developing
friendship between her niece and this young insurance man. But Miss
Wardrop had long since ceased to care what the world said, and her
satisfaction with her own views was sufficient to permit her ignoring
those who disagreed with them. She saw nothing objectionable in Smith,
and if she speculated on the affair at all, she probably reflected that
Miss Maitland was now twenty-five years old and if she didn't know her
own mind at that age, it didn't much matter what happened to her.

So Smith, who was blandly ignorant of the fact that propriety as
strictly measured in Boston would have been aghast at his candid manner
of following his inclinations, met with no obstacles save from Miss
Maitland herself. She, it is true, now and again drew back when it
seemed to her that their friendship was perhaps progressing too
rapidly; but she was not used to men like Smith. There was nothing of
the Puritan about him, nothing of the false idea that if a thing is
pleasant, it must therefore be somehow sinful. On the contrary, Smith
believed that with a normal person the gratification of wishes was the
natural result of their possession. If he felt hungry, he ate; if he
wanted to see Helen, he went and saw her. Against this hopeless lack
of affectation ordinary feminine weapons were badly blunted; in fact,
they came to strike Miss Maitland as rather silly. After all, if he
wished to see her, why shouldn't he do so? The mere fact that he had
seen her the day before was not germane. The one germane thing would
have been a lack of inclination on her part to see Smith--and curiously
enough, this lack did not manifest itself.

Thus it was that only a few days after their long talk about O'Connor,
the same fire saw them together once more. It was Thanksgiving Eve.

"Please don't tell me you have any engagement to-night," said Smith;
"for by almost superhuman effort and influence I have managed to
reserve a table for three at the Cafe Turin at eight o'clock. May I
call the Honorable Jinks and request Miss Wardrop to come and be
invited to dine with me?"

"You might try," said Miss Maitland, smiling.

"Then I will."

When the dignified Jenks had limped upward on his mission, the
conversation took another turn.

"You are looking very c