"But,"
he added, "I should hardly think it would be a subject you'd care to
discuss."

The blood came into the face of the first speaker.

"Well, I do, just the same," he said; "and I want to tell you that
you've gone too far. You've made a personal matter of ordinary
competition. All right--have it as you like. But you take it from me,
this fight's just started, and I'm going to see it through, and I'll
get you and your Guardian yet."

"Is that all you wish to say?" Smith queried in a level tone.

"Yes," said O'Connor, shortly; "that's all. Remember it."

And he turned toward the office of the Salamander.

CHAPTER XVIII

"27 Deerfield Street.

"DEAR MR. SMITH,--You never come to Boston any more, do you? Or when
you come, do you see some other lady? Assuming for the sake of
argument that you don't come, I can't help feeling rather relieved, for
if you ever thought my mind at all above the deadest dead level of my
sex--a sex that most gentlemen either secretly or openly believe to be
vastly inferior mentally to their own, anyway--you would receive a
fearful shock if you should arrive and see me now. For no girl could
more enthusiastically have thrown herself into the combination of
things with which the comic papers most dearly love to associate the
conventionally idiotic feminine--clothes and weddings. In this case
the wedding has not yet occurred, but the clothes are in one way or
another occurring nearly every twenty minutes; and far from being
ashamed of my interest in such petty and ephemeral things, I have
actually enjoyed the campaign--in which I have taken both an active and
advisory part--toward completing a trousseau for the prospective bride.

"However, one thing gives me courage to confess this to you, and that
is that I have merely followed out my natural tastes and inclinations,
and I think you have a theory that anything absolutely natural has a
right to exist. I hope I'm not wrong and that you really have such a
theory, for it has cheered me up quite a lot, because I don't believe
any one ever took a more vivid interest in clothes than I have done for
the last ten days.

"I suppose by this time you are thinking I have talked so much about it
that I must be acquiring this trousseau for myself, but such is not the
case. The bride-to-be is Isabel, who has finally decided to marry
Charlie Wilkinson at once, and without waiting longer for a change
which may never occur. Miss Hurd,