n a month. And from the first he's gone everywhere."

"That's quite unusual for your set, isn't it? I thought you rather
prided yourselves on being careful about outsiders."

"No one's an outsider whom Jinny Willard vouches for. Besides every one
likes Hal Surtaine for himself."

"You among the number?"

"Yes, indeed," she responded frankly. "He's attractive. And he seems
older and more--well--interesting than most of the boys of my set."

"And that appeals to you?"

"Yes: it does. I get awfully bored with the just-out-of-college chatter
of the boys. I want to see the wheels go round, Guardy. Real wheels,
that make up real machinery and get real things done. I'm not quite an
_ingenue_, you know."

"Thirty-five, thirty, twenty-five, fifteen, three," murmured her uncle,
rubbing his ear. "And does young Surtaine give you inside glimpses of
the machinery of his business?"

"Sometimes. He doesn't know very much about it himself, yet."

"It's a pretty dirty business, Honey. And, I'm afraid, he's a pretty bad
breed."

"The father _is_ rather impossible, isn't he?" she said, laughing. "But
they say he's very kindly, and well-meaning, and public-spirited, and
that kind of thing."

"He's a scoundrelly old quack. It's a bad inheritance for the boy. Where
are you off to this morning?"

"To the 'Clarion' office."

"What! Well, but, see here, dear, does Cousin Clarice approve of that
sort of thing?"

"Wholly," Esme assured him, dimpling. "It's on behalf of the Recreation
Club. That's the Reverend Norman Hale's club for working-girls, you
know. We're going to give a play. And, as I'm on the Press Committee,
it's quite proper for me to go to the newspapers and get things
printed."

"Humph!" grunted Dr. Elliot. "Well: good hunting--Pumess."

After the girl had gone, he sat thinking. He knew well the swift
intimacies, frank and clean and fine, which spring up in the small,
close-knit social circles of a city like Worthington. And he knew, too,
and trusted and respected the judgment of Mrs. Festus Willard, whose
friendship was tantamount to a certificate of character and eligibility.
As against that, he set the unforgotten picture of the itinerant quack,
vending his poison across the countryside, playing on desperate fears
and tragic hopes, coining his dollars from the grimmest of false dies;
and now that same quack,--powerful, rich, generous, popular, master of
the good things of life,--still draining out his million