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CHAPTER XIX
THE PATH IN THE WOOD

Had I not been obsessed with the desire at all costs to divert the unhappy tide of Jerry's infatuation, I must have known that no girl such as Una Habberton could lend herself as accessory to a plan like mine. I had had evidence enough that she cared for Jerry in a tender, almost a motherly way, and while I had been unsuccessful in my mission, I now saw no reason to change my opinion. Indeed, in my hotel room that night, the more I thought of the interview the more convinced I was that whatever modesty deterred her, it was the very fact of her caring so much that made the thing impossible to her. Her air of indifference, carefully assumed, had not hidden the rapid rise and fall of her breast at the confession of my fears. The inquietude of her manner, the curiosity which had permitted me to finish my story, were proof convincing that her interests in Jerry were more than ordinarily involved, and the more I thought of her attitude the more I wondered at my own temerity.

A brazen minx I had once thought her, but tonight in her plain white frock and sober conventional surroundings she seemed to show something of the quiet poise of a nurse or a nun. She seemed to exemplify the thought that the ideal woman is both wood-nymph and madonna. By contrast to the Nietzschian intriguer I had left that morning at Briar Hills, she was a paragon of all virtues. Nietzsche! The philosopher of the sty! Freud, his runt!

When, the following morning, I found Jack Ballard in his apartment at eleven (as usual fastening his cravat) I told him of the unfortunate end to my ventures, but he only laughed at me.

"My dear Pope," he said, "you are suffering from a severe attack of paternomania. If you don't mind my saying so, you're making a prodigious ass of yourself and of Jerry. If I were the boy, I'd pack you out bag and baggage. Imagine it! Put yourself in his place. Would you like any meddling in your little affairs of gallantry?" And he laughed aloud at his joke. I scowled at him, but passed the absurd remark in dignified silence.

"If it were an affair of gallantry!" I said at last, "I could forgive him that, and her. But this—it's mere milk and water and he thinks it's the nectar of the gods. The pity of it!"

"A pity, yes. But who is responsible? Not Jerry, surely. He's what you've made him," Jack paused expressively. "Does he—?" he began and paused. I read his meaning.

"No," I said.

"Um! Knowledge will come like a thunderclap to Jerry. Then—look out!"

I agreed with him.

"But Jerry's amatory ventures are none of your business, Pope," he went on. "Let the boy go the limit. He has got to do it. It won't hurt him. I told you that Marcia would help him cut his eye-teeth. She's doing it in approved modern fashion, without instruments or gas. He'll recover. Let 'em alone. I'll tell you what to do. Just put your precious dialectics in cold storage awhile—they'll keep; nobody'll thaw 'em out unless you do—and take a trip to 'Frisco."

"Frisco or not, I meddle no more."

"Frankenstein!" he laughed again. "The monster is getting away from you."

"If you're going to be facetious—"

"There are times when nothing else is possible. This is one of 'em. Brace up, old boy. All's lost but hope and that's going soon. You go home and take a pill. You're yellow. Perhaps I'll come up for the week-end for Marcia's party, you know,—if you'll promise to have the beds well-aired. I'm sure they're reminiscent of Jerry's pugs. Going? Oh, very well. Love to Jerry. And remember, old top, that a man is as heaven made him and sometimes a great deal worse."

This was the comforting reflection I took with me to the train that afternoon. But I was now resigned. I had done what I could and failed. The only thing left, it seemed, was to reconcile myself to the situation, seek a friendship with Marcia and await the débâcle.

I made, of course, no mention of the object of my visit to New York and Jerry gave me no confidences. He went to town Tuesday and Wednesday, returned tired and sullen. And the next night after a long period alone in the study in which I had managed at last to get my mind on my work, I found Jerry in the dining-room quite drunk with the brandy bottle beside him. He was ugly and disposed to be quarrelsome, but I got him to bed at last, suffering myself no graver damage than a bruised biceps where his great fingers had grasped me. Jack Ballard's remark about Frankenstein was no joke. That night a monster Jerry was; from the bottom of my heart I pitied him.

I argued with Jerry in the morning, pleaded with him and threatened to leave the Manor, but he was so contrite, so earnest in his promises of reformation that I couldn't find it in my heart to go. I proposed a trip to Europe, but he refused.

"Not now, Roger," he demurred. "I've got to stay here now. Just stick around with me for awhile, won't you, old chap?"

"Will you stop drinking?" I asked.

"Brandy?"

"Everything."

"H—m. You're the devil of a martinet."

"Will you?"

It was the supreme test of what remained of my influence over him. His head ached, I'm sure, for he looked a wreck. I watched his face anxiously. He went to the table, took a cigarette from the box and lighted it deliberately. Then turning, faced me with a smile, and offered his hand.

"Yes," he said. "Old Dry-as-dust, I will."

"A promise? You've never broken one, Jerry."

"A promise, Roger. I—I think I'm getting a little glimmering of sense. A promise. I'll keep it."

"Thank God, for that," I said, in so fervent a tone that the boy smiled at me.

"Good old Roger! You're a brick," he said. "Friendship, after all, is the greatest thing in the world." He turned his head and walked to the window and looked out, assuming an air of unconcern which I knew hid some deep-seated emotion. I, too, was silent. It was a fine moment for us both.

He turned into the room after awhile with an air of gayety.

"We're going to have a party, Roger."

"Ah, when?"

"Marcia's giving a dance tomorrow night, people from all over, and I'll have a few of 'em here in the afternoon—for tea out at the cabin. Sort of a picnic. Some of 'em are bringing rods to try the early fishing. Rather jolly, eh? I'll tell Poole and Christopher—"

I confessed myself much pleased with this arrangement and thanked my stars that Una had refused me. It was the day I had wanted her. Indeed, since Jerry's promise, life at the Manor had suddenly taken a different complexion. A new hope was born in me. Jerry would keep that promise. I was sure of it.

I will come as rapidly as possible to the extraordinary happenings of that Saturday afternoon, which as much as any other event in this entire history, portrays the mutability of the feminine mind. I had gone out to the cabin to see that everything was in order, and Jerry was to follow later, while a few of the men fished up stream, Marcia and some of her guests driving in motors to the upper gate, cutting across to the cabin through the woods. Christopher had cleared the cabin and he and Poole had brought the eatables and set a table. The two days that had passed since Jerry had given me his promise had been cheerful ones for the boy. I had not seen Miss Gore, but for aught I knew Marcia Van Wyck might have been adoring Jerry again. I did not care what her mood was. All would come right, for Jerry had given me a promise and he would not break it. The arrangements within the cabin having been completed, I went outside and wandered a short way down the path toward the stream, sat on a rock and became at once engaged in my favorite woodland game of counting birdcalls. Thrushes and robins, warblers, sparrows, finches, all engaged in the employment that Jerry had described as "hopping around a bit," or chirping, calling, singing until the air was melodious with sound. The birdman's surprise, a new note differing from the others, a loud clear gurgling song, brought me to my feet and I went on down the path listening. It was different from the note of a wren which it resembled, that of a Lincoln sparrow, I was sure, a rarity at the Manor, only one specimen of which Jerry possessed. But midway in my pursuit of the elusive bird I saw movement in the path in front of me and I caught a glimpse of leather leggins and a skirt. In a moment all thought of my Lincoln sparrow was gone from my head. At first I thought the visitor one of Jerry's guests, but as she approached, butterfly net in hand, I saw that it was Una Habberton. So great was my surprise at seeing her that I stood, mouth open, stupidly staring. But she was laughing at me.

"You're a nice one," she was saying. "Here I am a trespasser through the grille and not a soul to greet me."

"You came," I muttered inanely.

"Obviously; since here I am. It's Saturday, isn't it?"

"Yes. But—" I paused.

"But what?"

"You said you wouldn't come."

"Oh," she laughed. "I merely changed my mind—my privilege, you know. I was a trifle stale. I thought it would do me good. But you don't seem in the least glad to see me."

I was—delighted. Joy was one of the things that made me dumb.

"I was just trying to realize—er—Won't you sit down? On a rock, I mean. Jerry's somewhere about. He'll be along in a minute."

The possible effect on Una of Jerry's guests, who also might be along in a minute, was just beginning to bewilder me.

"He's fishing?"

"He was to meet me at the cabin. He'll be along presently. It will be a wonderful surprise. Suppose we hadn't been out here at all?"

"I was prepared to go all the way to the house. Nice of me, wasn't it? You know I promised Jerry some day I'd come to see his collection."

"He'll be delighted—Ho! There's his whistle now." I sounded the familiar call on my fingers and moved toward the cabin, but she stopped me.

"You're not to leave me, Mr. Canby, or I'll go."

"Why?"

"A chance meeting would have been different. This is premeditation. Don't leave me. Do you hear!"

I nodded and when Jerry came in sight I called him. He appeared in the path, a basket of wine in one hand, a fishing rod in the other.

"Hello, Roger," he shouted and then paused, setting the basket down.

"I didn't know—"

"A surprise, Jerry!"

"Why, it's Una!" he cried. "Una! What on earth—?"

"I was butterflying, and wandered through." She laughed. "I told you to have that railing mended."

"The necessity for that is past," he laughed gayly. "Oh, it's jolly good to see you."

He took her by both hands and held her off from him examining her delightedly.

"It seems like yesterday. I'm not sure it isn't yesterday that you broke in and I was going to throw you over the wall. Imagine it! You! You're just the same—so different from the sober little mouse of Blank Street. I believe you have on the very same clothes, the same gaiters—"

"Naturally. Do you think I'm a millionaire?"

Three was a crowd. I would have given my right hand to have transported the cabin and all the gay people expected there to the ends of the earth. In a moment the woods would be full of them. I was at a loss what to do, for when they came the bird would take flight, but Jerry seemed to have forgotten everything but the girl before him. It was a real enthusiasm and happiness that he showed, the first in weeks.

"So you expected to slip in and out without being caught, did you?" Jerry was saying. "Pretty sort of a friend, you are! You might at least have let a fellow know you were going to be in this part of the world; where are you staying?"

"I don't see how that's the slightest concern of yours," she said demurely.

"The same old Una!" cried Jerry delightedly. "Always making game of a fellow. Do sit down again and let's have a chat. It seems ages since I've seen you. How's the day nursery coming on? Did you get the last check? I meant to stop in and see the plans. I couldn't, though," he frowned a little. "Something turned up. Business, you know."

"Jerry is busy," I put in mischievously, as I sat down beside them. "He worked Tuesday and Wednesday this week."

"Aren't you afraid of injuring your health, Jerry?" she asked sweetly. "I hope you're not working too hard."

He frowned and then burst into laughter.

"Roger's a chump. He sits staring at a sheet of foolscap all day and thinks he's working. I do work, though. I'm reorganizing a railroad," he finished proudly.

"How splendid! I'm sure it needs it. Railroads are the most disorganized and disorganizing—"

"And I'm engaged in a freight war with a rival steamship company. It's perfectly bully. I've got 'em backed off the map. We're carrying stuff for almost nothing and they're howling for help." He had taken out his pipe and was lighting it. "I'm going to buy 'em out," he finished. "But you don't want to hear about me. What are—"

"I do. Of course"—and she exchanged a quick glance with me. "Of course, I see a little about you in the papers—your interest in athletics—"

"Oh, I say, Una," he cried, flushing a dark red. "It's not fair to—"

"I'm fearfully interested," she persisted calmly. "You know it's actually gotten me into the habit of the sporting page. 'Walloping' Houligan and 'Scotty' Smith, the Harlem knock-out artist, are no longer empty names for me. They're real people with jabs and things."

"It's not kind of you—"

"I've been waiting breathlessly for your next encounter. I hope it's with 'Scotty.' It would be so much more of an achievement to win from a real knock-out artist—"

"Stop it, Una," he cried painfully. "I forbid you—"

"Do you mean," she asked innocently, "that you don't like to discuss—"

"I—I'd rather talk of something else," he stammered. "I've stopped boxing."

"Why?" wide-eyed. "The newspapers were wild about you. It was a fluke, wasn't it—Clancy 'getting' you in the ninth?"

"No," he muttered sullenly, "he whipped me fairly."

"Really. I'm awfully sorry. When one sets one's heart upon a thing—"

"Will you be quiet, Una?" he cried impetuously. "I won't have you talking this way, of these things. I—I was jollied into the thing. I mean," with a glance at me, "I never thought of the consequences. It—it was only a lark. I'm out of it, for good."

"Oh!" she said in a subdued tone, her gaze upon a distant tree-trunk. "It's too bad."

Whatever she meant by that cryptic remark, Jerry looked most uncomfortable. Her irony had cut him to the quick, and her humor had flayed his quivering sensibilities. That he took it without anger argued much for the quality of the esteem in which he held her. Another person, even I, in similar circumstances, would have courted demolition. Secretly, I was delighted. She had struck just the right note. He still writhed inwardly, but he made no effort at unconcern. I think he was perfectly willing that she should be a witness of his self-abasement.

"I was an idiot, Una, a conceited, silly fool. I deserve everything you say. I think it makes me a little happier to hear you say it, because if you weren't my friend you'd have kept quiet."

"I haven't said anything," she remarked urbanely. "And of course it's none of my affair."

"But it is," he was insisting.

I had risen, for along the path some people were coming. Jerry and Una, their backs being turned, were so absorbed in their conversation that they did not hear the rustle of footsteps, but when I rose they glanced at me and saw my face. I would have liked to have spirited them away, but it was too late. I made out the visitors now, Marcia, Phil Laidlaw, Sarah Carew and Channing Lloyd. I saw a change come in Jerry's face, as though a gray cloud had passed over it. Una started up, butterfly-net in hand, and glanced from one to the other of us, a question in her eyes, her face a trifle set.

"Oh, here you are," Marcia's soft voice was saying. "It seemed ages getting here."

Jerry took charge of the situation with a discretion that did the situation credit.

"Marcia, you know Miss Habberton—Miss Van Wyck."

"Of course," they both echoed coolly. Marcia examining Una impertinently, Una cheerfully indifferent.

"Miss Habberton and I were after butterflies," said Jerry, "but she has promised to stop for tea."

"I really ought to be going, Jerry," said Una.

"But you can't, you know, after promising," said Jerry with a smile.

The introductions made, the party moved on toward the cabin, Miss Habberton and I bringing up the rear.

"I could kill you for this," she whispered to me and the glance she gave me half-accomplished her wish.

"It isn't my fault," I protested. "I didn't know they were coming until yesterday—and you know you said—"

"Well, you ought to have warned me. I've no patience with you—none."

"But, my dear child—"

"I feel like a fool—and it's your fault."

"But how could I—?"

"You ought to have known."

Women I knew were not reasonable beings, but I expected better things than this of Una. I followed meekly, aware of my insufficiency. I felt sorry if Una was uncomfortable, but I had seen enough of her to know that she was quite able to cope with any situation in which she might be placed. Marcia with Jerry had gone on ahead and I saw that, while the girl was talking up at him, Jerry walked with his head very erect. The situation was not clear to Marcia. I will give her the credit of saying that she had a sense of divination which was little short of the miraculous. It must have puzzled her to find Una here if, as I suspected. Jerry made her the confidante of all his plans, present and future—Una Habberton, the girl who had ventured alone within the wall, the account of whose visit had once caused a misunderstanding between them. The thought of Una's visit I think must have always been a thorn in Marcia's side, for Jerry's strongest hold on Marcia's imagination was nurtured by the thought that she, Marcia, was the first, the only woman that Jerry had ever really known. And here was her forgotten and lightly esteemed predecessor sporting with Jerry in the shade!

In the cabin we made a gay party. Una, I am sure, in spite of her cheerful pretense with Phil Laidlaw, had a woman's intuition of Marcia's antagonism. Jerry joined and chatted in Una's group for a moment, but I could see that he had lost something of his buoyancy. I watched Marcia keenly. Though absorbed apparently in the pouring of the tea, a self-appointed prerogative which she had assumed with something of an air—(meant, I am sure, for Una)—her narrowly veiled eyes lost no detail of any happening in Una's group, and her ears, I am sure, no detail of its conversation. Subtle glances, stolen or portentous, shot between them, and Jerry, poor lad, wandered from one to the other like some great ship becalmed in a tropic sea aware of an impending tempest, yet powerless to prevent its approach.

Una Habberton, I would like to say, had recovered her composure amazingly. Phil Laidlaw was an old acquaintance whom she very much liked and in a while they were chatting gayly, exchanging reminiscences with such a rare degree of concord and amusement that it seemed to matter little to either of them who else was in the room. But Una, I think, in spite of this abstraction, missed nothing of Marcia's slightest glances. She said nothing more of going. It seemed almost as though, war having tacitly been declared, she was on her mettle for the test whatever it was to be. I had not misjudged her. She knew Marcia Van Wyck, and what she did not know she suspected, and by the light of that knowledge (and that suspicion) had a little of contempt for her.

CHAPTER XX
REVOLT

I sat in my corner sipping tea. Being merely a man, middle-aged and something of a misogynist into the bargain, I was aware that as an active, useful force in this situation, I was a negligible quality. But it is interesting to record my impressions of the engagement. It began actively, I believe, when Marcia called Jerry from Una's group and appeared to appropriate him. Jerry looked ill at ease and from the glances he cast in the direction of Channing Lloyd, and the sullen way in which he spoke to Marcia, I think that all was not well with this ill-sorted pair.

I think that Channing Lloyd had for some time been a bone of contention between them and it required little imagination on my part to decide that his presence here today at Marcia's request had broken some agreement between them. Mere surmise, of course, but interesting. Marcia was stubborn and showed her defiance of Jerry's wishes by retaliation at Una's expense. But by this time other people who had come in from the fishing had joined Una's group by the window where the intruder seemed to be oblivious of Marcia and quite in her element. Indeed for the moment Marcia was out of it and her conversation with Jerry having apparently reached an impasse, she rose, leaving the tea-table to Christopher's ministrations and advanced valiantly to the attack.

Una promptly made room for her on the window sill, a wise bit of generalship which forced the enemy at once into polite subterfuge.

"It's so nice to see you, Una dear. How did you manage to escape from all your tiresome work at the Mission?"

"I could do it very nicely this week-end," said Una cheerfully. "Why haven't you been to any of the committee meetings?"

"It has been so warm. And of course while you are in charge we all know that everything must be going right."

"It's kind of you to say so. You know, wonderful things have been happening at the Mission. We're building a day nursery on the next block to help the working women. Jerry has been awfully kind. Of course you knew about it."

"Yes, of course," said Marcia, not turning a hair.

She lied. I knew that Jerry had kept the matter secret even from Marcia. I figured that the revelation must have been something of a shock to one of her intriguing nature, but she covered her grievance skillfully.

"Jerry is very generous," she said sweetly. "Do tell me about it."

Here Jerry blundered in rather sheepishly. "Oh, I say, Una, that's a secret, you know."

"Oh, is it?" said Una innocently. "I can't see why. Marcia knows. Everybody ought to. It was such a splendid thing to do."

"Jerry is so modest," said Marcia.

"The plans are simply adorable," Una went on quickly. "You know, Jerry, we simply had to have that open-air school on the roof. You know, you didn't object—"

"N—no—of course," said Jerry, shifting his feet.

"And the ward for nursing babies—we did put those windows in the west wall. You know we were a little uncertain about that."

"So we were," echoed Jerry dismally.

This was merely the preliminary skirmish with Una's outposts holding their positions close to the enemy's lines. But Marcia was not to be daunted. She opened fire immediately.

"It's simply dear of you, Una, to take so much interest in the work. I'm sure Jerry must have frightful difficulties in managing to spend his income. But to have his oldest friend to help him must relieve him of a tremendous burden of responsibility."

The outposts withdrew to the main line of skirmirshers and there opened fire again, from cover.

"It isn't so much a matter of friendship as of real interest in the needs of the community, you know. Anyone else would do quite as well as I; for instance, you, Marcia."

"But you see," Marcia countered coolly, "I haven't known Jerry nearly so long as you have."

"Haven't you?"

"I don't think so. Have I, Jerry?"

Jerry evaded the issue with some skill.

"Friendships aren't reckoned in terms of time," he put in with a short laugh. "If they were I'd be the most solitary person under the sun."

Marcia merely smiled, saying nothing, and when she joined the talk of another group I saw Una's gaze following her curiously.

She seemed to be able to understand Marcia little better than I did. But in a moment from my seat in the corner just beside them I saw Una look about the room and give a little gasp of pleasure.

"This cabin! Do you remember, Jerry?" she said quietly. "You gave me a cup of tea here and we decided just what you and I were going to do with the wicked world?"

"Oh, don't I? And you told me all about the plague spots?"

"Yes." She gazed out of the window. "You were interesting that day, Jerry."

"Was! I like that."

"So elephantine in your seriousness—"

"Elephantine! Oh, I say—"

"But you were nice. I don't think I've ever liked you so much as then. I think you're really much more interesting when you're elephantine. It was quite glorious the way you were planning to go galumphing over all vice and wickedness."

He shook his head soberly.

"I haven't made good, Una."

"Oh, there's still time. The jungle is still there, but it's an awfully big jungle, Jerry, bigger than you thought."

"Yes—bigger and swampier," he said slowly.

"I think if I could see more of you, Una, I might be better."

"I don't know that I've ever denied you the house," she laughed.

"I—I'm coming soon. But I want you to see my place here—the house, I mean. Couldn't you come with your mother and—and sisters and spend a few days up here?"

"Perhaps it would be time enough for me to answer that question when mother does. I—I am busy, you know."

"Please! And we can have one of our good old chats."

"Yes," and then mischievously, "but you'd better ask Marcia first, don't you think?"

His gaze fell and he reddened.

"I—I don't quite see what Marcia's got to do with it," he muttered.

"Oh, don't you?"

"No."

She smiled and then with a really serious air:

"Well, I do. I'm sorry I intruded, Jerry. I wouldn't have come for the world if I had known—"

"What nonsense you do talk. Promise me you'll come, Una."

"Ask Marcia first."

He laughed uneasily. "What a tease you are!"

"You ought to be very much flattered."

"How?"

"To be worth teasing."

Here they moved slightly away, turning their backs toward me and unfortunately I could hear no more. And so I sat listening to the group around Marcia, who was again enthroned at the tea-table.

I had not met the men, but they were of the usual man-about-town type, "Marcia's ex-es" somebody, I think the mannish Carew girl, amusingly called them. Among them Arthur Colton, married only a year, who already boasted that he was living "the simple double life." Besides the Laidlaws there were the Walsenberg woman, twice a grass widow and still hopeful, and the Da Costa debutante who looked as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, giggled constantly and said things which she fondly hoped to be devilish, but which were only absurd. This was the girl, I think, whom Jerry had described as having only five adjectives, all of which she used every minute. Channing Lloyd, a glass of champagne at his elbow, laughed gruffly and filled the room with tobacco smoke. I listened. Small talk, banalities, bits of narrow glimpses of narrow pursuits. I had to admit that Marcia quite dominated this circle, and I understood why. Shallow as she was, she was the only one with the possible exception of Phil Laidlaw who gave any evidence of having done any thinking at all. I might have known as I listened that her conversation had a purpose.

"I claim that obedience to the will of man," Marcia was saying, "has robbed woman of all initiative, all incentive to achievement, all creative faculty, and that only by renouncing man and all his works will she ever be his equal."

"Why don't you renounce 'em then, Marcia?" roared Lloyd, amid laughter.

"I know at least one that I could renounce,' said Marcia, smiling as she lighted a cigarette.

"Me? You couldn't," he returned. "You've tried, you know, but you've got to admit that I'm positively in'spensible to you."

"Do be quiet, Chan. You're idiotic. I'm quite serious."

"You're always serious, but you never mean what you say."

"Oh, don't I?"

"No," he grunted over his glass.

She glanced at him for a moment and their eyes met, hers falling first. Then she turned away. I think that the man's attraction for her was nothing less than his sheer bestiality.

"I believe in a splendid unconventional morality," she went on, musing with half-closed eyes over the ash of her cigarette. "After awhile you men will understand what it means."

"Not I," said Lloyd, who was drinking more than he needed. "If you say that immorality is conventional I'll agree with you, my dear, but morality—" and he drank some champagne, "morality! what rot!"

The others laughed, I'll admit, more at, than with him. But the conversation was sickening enough. I saw Jerry and Una shake hands and come forward and Marcia immediately turned toward them. The end of the battle was not yet, for as Una nodded in the general direction of the group in passing, Marcia spoke her name.

"Ah, Una dear. You're going?"

"I must," with a glance at her wrist watch. "It's getting late."

"What a pity. I wanted to talk to you—about the Mission."

"I'd like to, but—"

"We've just been discussing a theme that I know you're really vitally interested in."

"I?" I could see by the sudden lift of her brows that Una was now on her guard.

"Yes. You believe in women working, in woman's independence, in the New-Thought idea of unconventional morality, don't you?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Simply that women are or should be perfectly capable of looking out for themselves, as much so as men?"

"That depends a great deal upon the woman, I should say," replied Una, smiling tolerantly.

"I was just about to put a hypothetical question. Do you mind listening? A young girl, for instance, pretty, romantic, a trifle venturesome, weary of the banalities of existence, leaves all the tiresome cares of the city and with the wanderlust upon her goes faring forth in search of adventure. A purely hypothetical case, but a typical one. As she wanders through the woods, she comes upon a high stone wall, something like this one of Jerry's, and suddenly remembers that within this wall there lives a young man, beautiful beyond the dreams of the gods. I have said that she is romantic, also venturesome—"

"Her address, please," muttered Lloyd quickly.

"Do be quiet, Chan—" Marcia went on. "Venturesome, modern, moral—"

"It can't be done," muttered the brute again.

"Chan, do be serious. Curiosity overwhelms the girl. Nobody is about. So, putting her fears behind her, she climbs the wall and enters."

The daring impertinence of this recital had stricken Jerry suddenly dumb, but the veins at his temples were swelling with the hot blood that had risen to his face. Una, after a moment of uncertainty, became strangely composed.