rugged
with happiness, and sat like a big half-embarrassed, half-dreaming
youth, twirling his hat in his hands, pulling off and putting on his
gloves, and tracing patterns with his stick on the carpet until she
reappeared, and then he was strangely lacking in self-confidence and
readiness.

He took her to one of the best uptown restaurants for breakfast and she
ate with an appetite that pleased him, giving, as it did, evidence of
glorious health. And then came his second fortunate moment of the day.

"I'd tell you a secret, Mr. Sobersides," she said with a brisk little
laugh, "if I wasn't a little bit afraid you'd give me away to Mamma, You
know how horribly conventional she is--and--and it's only lately that I
came to think one could trust you with a secret of this sort."

"Secrets," he assured her with a grin, "are my specialty. Secrets. Why
it's my business to know secrets!"

"All right! Here goes!" she said, leaning toward him and displaying a
mischievous smile. "You remember I told you I intended to have a studio
of my own? Well, Mother set her foot down on it as if I had invited her
to share partnership in a snake. Oh, you should have heard her. You
know how she can freeze one out! She said that if I thought she would
permit me to become one of a crowd of mongrel Bohemians and such, she
would drag me off to the Wilmarths' with her, or cancel all painting
lessons, or--Honestly! I think she threatened to have me sent to an
Orphans' Home, or a hospital for the feeble minded. Well, I'm twenty-two
years old, and Mamma doesn't seem to know it yet. Also, I'm able to take
care of myself, and to have an idea of what I want. I'm going to be a
painter, Jorgensen himself says I have talent, and between you and me,
my sketches were the only ones done by his pupils that caused the
critics to say much at his last exhibition. They gave me a quarter of a
column and all the other girls together got a paragraph. Wasn't it
lovely? So I'm going to have a studio of my own, and that's the secret!
Understand?"

"Not quite," he admitted.

"Stupid! Don't you see, Mamma mustn't know I have one, and so no one
else must, either. Honestly, you're the only one within the charmed
circle up to now. Listen! I've taken a studio in MacDougall alley under
the name of Mary Allen. No one must know but what a real Mary Allen
really has that studio. Down Acre I'm going to be Mary Allen and no one
else. Now don't you start in to shake your head and