ess controlled
tones.

"You are the one that is different! I have always been just the
same--just exactly the same! Ask anybody if I've changed--ask aunty!
'Tina has the best temper of any girl I know,' aunty always says.
But its just as she warned me. Aunty always knows--she's seen lots
and lots of people and plenty of swells, too--it isn't as if you
were the only one, Mr. Armstrong!"

He looked curiously at the flushed, lovely face; curiously, as
though he had never really studied it before.

"Perhaps--perhaps it _is_ I," he said slowly, "I--maybe you're
right. And of course I know--" he smiled oddly at the pretty picture
she made--"that I'm not the only one."

Something in his tone irritated her; she unfurled the rosy parasol
angrily.

"Aunty said from the beginning you'd be hard to get on with," she
flashed out. "She said the second time you came to the house with
Mr. Walbridge for his sister's fitting and asked Kitty and I for a
ride in the machine, 'I'm perfectly willing you girls should go, for
they're both all right and I think the dark one's serious, but--"

"You discussed me with your aunt, then?"

She looked at him in amazement.

"Discussed you with aunty? Why certainly I did. Why shouldn't I? How
do you suppose I'm to get anywhere, placed as I am, Mr. Armstrong,
unless I'm pretty careful? I've nothing but my looks--I know that
perfectly well--and I can't afford to make any mistakes. And aunty
said, 'I think the dark one's serious, Tina, but I don't know,
somehow, I'd keep in with Walbridge. He may not have so much money,
but he'll be easier to manage. Armstrong seems like any other gay
young fellow, and for all I know he is--he's certainly generous--but
I'd rather have you Mrs. Walter Walbridge and lose the family
custom, than have you tied up to an obstinate man."

"And--excuse me, but I'm really interested," he asked, "could you be
Mrs. Walter Walbridge?"

"Yes, I could," she answered, "he asked me when he lent you the
machine. I suppose he thought you might," she added simply.

He drew a long breath.

"And you answered--"

"I said I'd think it over," she said softly. "I--are you really
angry with me, Rob? We're friends, aren't we? Friends--"

Her eyes lifted to his. "You see, Rob," she went on, still softly,
"a girl like me has to be awfully straight and pretty careful. It's
not easy to go to theaters and suppers and out with the machines and
keep your head--you can't always tell about