me so? It's been three weeks since I've set eyes upon
you except at church, and then you would not look at me."

"I don't imagine that you have suffered much," replied Winn, savagely,
looking at an immense bunch of American Beauty roses on the
centre-table, and thinking of Simmons. "I am a worker in the hive these
days, and 'sassiety' isn't for me."

Ethel looked at him and laughed.

"My dear boy," she said sweetly, "you ought to send your temper to the
laundry and feel grateful I wanted to see you. I refused an invitation
to the opera this eve just to have a visit with you, and you come cross
as two sticks."

"I'm sorry," he answered, "but I have troubles of my own, and life isn't
all a picnic. For instance, I've got to take a two-hundred-mile ride
into the country to-morrow, pay up the taxes, and find a tenant for the
old farm. I've just returned from a business trip, away five days, and
the editor told me this afternoon if I wanted more time off now I'd
better resign."

"He's a brute," said Ethel.

"No, he's a business man," replied Winn, "and I'm his servant, that is
all. I don't intend to be much longer, or any man's for that matter."

"I'm so glad," she asserted, in the cooing, sympathetic tone a woman
knows so well how to use; "you are capable of better things, Winn, and I
shall welcome the day when you are your own master."

Then Winn, his vexed spirit soothed by this woman's gentle sympathy, his
self-respect restored by her praise, looked at her admiringly. "Ethel,"
he said, "you can mark the two extremes of womankind--angel or
devil--with equal facility. If ever I attempt a novel, you shall be the
heroine."

"Better not," she laughed. "I've no sentiment, and a heroine without a
heart would be a flat failure. No," she continued musingly, "I've not
even a little one. I used to think I had, but I've outgrown it.
Sentiment on a woman's part these days is a weakness for men to trample
upon. Sister Grace had sentiment. Now she lives in four rooms and tends
baby, while hubby escapes to the club. No, thanks. No sentiment in mine,
please."

"I begin to think it's folly on either side," asserted Winn, soberly,
"and especially in business. Jack says 'be good and you'll be lonesome,'
and calls me a fool for being honest. You say I am out of my groove here
and that a woman with a heart is a stupid. I am inclined to think that
there is no such thing as truth, honor, and sentiment except among old
fogies and chi