told me that herself. So--where does he go?"

"Well, but----"

"Where _does_ he go--every evening?"

"I'm sure I couldn't answer----"

"Every evening!" she repeated absently.

"Good heavens, Helen----"

"And what is on that boy's mind? There's something on it."

"His business, let us hope----"

She shook her head: "I know my son," she remarked.

"So do I. What is particularly troubling you, dear? There's something
you haven't told me."

"I'm merely wondering who that girl was who lunched with him at
Delmonico's--_three times_--last week," mused his wife.

"Why--she's probably all right, Helen. A man doesn't take the other
sort there."

"So I've heard," she said drily.

"Well, then?"

"Nothing.... She's very pretty, I understand.... And wears mourning."

"What of it?" he asked, amused. She smiled at him, but there was a
trace of annoyance in her voice.

"Don't you think it very natural that I should wonder who any girl is
who lunches with my son three times in one week?... And is remarkably
pretty, besides?"

* * * * *

The girl in question looked remarkably pretty at that very moment,
where she sat at her desk, the telephone transmitter tilted toward
her, the receiver at her ear, and her dark eyes full of gayest
malice.

"Miss Dumont, please?" came a distant and familiar voice over the
wire. The girl laughed aloud; and he heard her.

"You _said_ you were not going to call me up."

"Is it _you_, Palla?"

"How subtle of you!"

He said anxiously. "Are you doing anything this evening--by any
unhappy chance----"

"I am."

"Oh, hang it! What _are_ you doing?"

"How impertinent!"

"You know I don't mean it that way----"

"I'm not sure. However, I'll be kind enough to tell you what I'm
doing. I'm sitting here at my desk, listening to an irritable young
man----"

"That's wonderful luck!" he exclaimed joyously.

"Wonderful luck for a girl to sit at a desk and listen to an irritable
young man?"

"If you'll stop talking bally nonsense for a moment----"

"If you bully me, I shall stop talking altogether!"

"For heaven's sake----"

"I hear you, kind sir; you need not shout!"

He said humbly: "Palla, would you let me drop in----"

"Drop into what? Into poetry? Please do!"

"For the love of----"

"Jim! You told me last evening that you expected to be at the opera
to-night."

"I'm not going."

"--So I didn't expect you to call me!"

"C