to see," said Isabel, thoughtfully. "People have bought the
stock and banks have lent money on it without knowing whether the
property was protected by insurance or not?"

"On the contrary, rather assuming that it was. Your father's antipathy
to insurance is a little unusual, you know. So far no one has ever
made a point of bringing it strongly before the public. And banks and
stock markets are queer things--and confidence is jarred with singular
ease. There are a number of pretty important men in this town who
would dislike to have some of their loans called or to have
Massachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction drop ten or fifteen points. Of
course this needn't happen--and for a preventative, apply to Charles
Wilkinson, Esquire, restorer of lost confidences."

Helen spoke.

"Whose idea was this, did you say?" she asked.

"His name was Smith," said Wilkinson, soberly.

Helen started to ask another question; then changed her mind, and was
silent. What surprised her was the fact that she found herself
interested, sharply interested, in the problem Charles had presented.
She was, in fact, more interested than she had been in anything for
some time. She was astonished to find this to be so. She had always
been under the impression, common enough among the more sheltered of
her class, that business was a thing in which only the men who carried
it on could possibly be absorbed. Yet here she had been interested to
the exclusion of all else in a matter that was of absolutely no
aesthetic value and with the terms and locale of which she was quite
unfamiliar. As it had been presented to her and she had tried, at
Charles's demand, to find a way out for him--she stated the problem
over more clearly--she admitted feeling a trifle piqued when she racked
her brain for a solution only to find it barren of expedients and a
hopeless blank. Yet this chance acquaintance of Charlie's had
apparently hit on _his_ expedient casually enough. Once more she
restrained the impulse to ask another question, although she scarcely
knew why she did so, and she remained silent until, a few moments
later, she was roused by the departure of the satiated Wilkinson.

"Wish me luck," he said, as he turned to go. "More depends upon this
than you pampered children of luxury can ever guess. Isabel, I
congratulate you on the educational advance of your butler. Miss
Maitland, I am your very devoted."

The curtains of the drawing room shut him