m."

"Bartlett _versus_ Martel, eh?"

"I suppose so. Heaven knows, I wish I were one thing or the other."

"Oh, I don't know," said Quin. "You are pretty nice just as you are."
Then he added inconsequently: "Who was that fat man you were talking to
when I came up?"

"Mr. Pfingst. He is Estelle Linton's backer."

"Backer?" queried Quin. Then, when he saw Eleanor's eyes drop, he added
vaguely: "Oh! I see!"

For the next block, strange to say, he did not think so much about
Eleanor as he did about Miss Isobel Bartlett. The whole situation kept
presenting itself through her austere eyes, and instinctively he put a
protecting hand on Eleanor's elbow.

When at last they were on top of the bus, with the big, noisy city
apparently going in the opposite direction, they promptly forgot all
about the studio party and plunged headlong into their own important
affairs.

"Begin at the _very_ beginning," commanded Eleanor, settling herself for
a good long ride; "I want you to tell me everything."

The beginning and the end and all that lay between them could easily have
been compassed in three words by Quin. But there were things he had
pledged himself to tell her before he even broached the subject that was
shrieking for utterance. With painstaking exactness he set forth the
facts that led up to his dismissal, trying to be fair to Mr. Bangs as
well as to himself, and, above all, to claim no credit for taking the
stand he had.

But Eleanor would not see it thus. With characteristic fervor she
espoused his cause. She declared he had been treated outrageously. He
ought to have taken the matter straight to her grandmother. The very
idea! After all the work he had done at the factory, for him to be
dismissed just because he wouldn't do a thing that he considered
dishonorable! She _hated_ Mr. Bangs--she always had hated him; and the
more she dwelt upon the fact, the more ardently she approved Quin's
course.

"It was perfectly splendid of you to refuse his offer!" she cried, and
her eyes blazed with that particular ray of feminine partisanship that is
most soothing to the injured masculine. "And you won't lose by it in the
long run. You'll get another position right off. Why don't you try to get
one here in New York?"

"Would you like me to?"

"I should say I should! Then we could do all sorts of jolly things
together. Not studio parties or cabarets, but jolly outdoor things like
we used to do at home. Do stay, Quin; won't