ou'd like to
have me, dearie, but this is my moment of emancipation." She crossed the
room and looked down at the tiny bit of humanity curled like a kitten in
the curve of her daughter's arm. "I'm not going to be your grandmother,
yet, midget," she announced, with decision. Then, "Cecily, I think when
she's old enough I shall have her call me--Cupid--"

And laughing in the face of her daughter's horrified protest, the
mutinous grandparent retired precipitately to her own room.

Three hours later, Mrs. Cissy Beale went forth to conquer, gowned in a
restaurant frock of shadow lace topped by a black tulle hat.

Valentine Landry, greeting her in Cecily's white-and-gold drawing-room,
was breezy and radiant. "You're as lovely as ever," he said, as he took
her hand; "perhaps a bit lovelier because you are glad to see me."

"I am glad," she assured him; "and it is so nice to have you come before
the summer is at an end. We can have a ride out into Westchester, and
come back by daylight to dinner."

"And no chaperons?"

"No." She was looking up at him a little wistfully. "We know each other
too well to have to drag in a lot of people, don't we? It is the men
whom women trust with whom they go alone."

He met her glance gravely. "Do you know," he said, "that you have the
sweetest way of putting things? A man simply has to come up to your
expectations. He'd as soon think of disappointing a baby as of
disappointing you."

His selection of a simile was unfortunate. Mrs. Beale's eyes became
fixed upon a refractory button of her glove.

"Please help me," she said; "your fingers are stronger," and as he bent
above her hand she forgot the baby, forgot her new estate, forgot
everything except the joy she felt at having his smooth gray head so
close to her own.

When he had her safely beside him in his big car he asked, "What made
you run away from me in Chicago?"

"My daughter came home from Europe."

"I can't quite think of you with a grown daughter."

"Cecily's a darling." Mrs. Beale's voice held no enthusiasm.

Landry, noting her tone, looked faintly surprised. "You and she must
have great good times together."

"Oh, yes--"

Mrs. Beale wished that he wouldn't talk about Cecily. Cecily had married
before good times were possible. They had never played together--she and
the little daughter for whom she had toiled and sacrificed.

Landry's voice broke in upon her meditations: "I should like to meet
Cecily."

Mrs.