beating of an excited heart, heard after taking some
drug to exaggerate the pulsation. Yet Carleton was hardly conscious of
what he saw or heard. He was thinking how best to ask Rose Winter to
make Miss Grant's acquaintance. Several ways occurred to him, but at
last he blurted out something quite different from what he had planned.

"There's a girl--a lady--I--I want to get your opinion about," he
stammered, turning red, because he knew that Rose was looking at him
with a dangerously innocent expression in her eyes. "That is, I should
like to know how you'd classify her," he finished.

Rose answered lightly. "There are just three sorts of women,
Boy--counting girls: Perfect Dears, Poor Dears, and Persons. Men of
course are still easier to classify, because there are only two kinds of
them--nice and horrid. But under which of the three heads would you
yourself put your friend? I suppose you think she's a Perfect Dear, or
you wouldn't have to go and look out of the window while you lead up to
asking if I'll make her acquaintance."

"No," said Dick. "I'm afraid she's rather more like a Poor Dear. That's
why I want you to help her."

"Oh, you want me to help her? You're _quite_ sure she isn't a Person?"

"I should think not, indeed!" Dick broke out indignantly. "She's a lady,
whatever else she may be."

"It sounds like a Deserving Case. Oh, dear, I do _hope_ she isn't a
deserving case? I've had so many thrust under my nose in the last seven
weeks, and I'm sorry to say the undeserving ones are usually more
interesting. They're all undeserving ones who're coming to tea."

"If you'd call on her, you could see for yourself whether you thought
she was deserving or not."

"That's the way I'm to help her--by calling? I thought perhaps I was to
get her out of pawn, or something, by buying her jewellery. But I had
to tell you, if _that_ was what you wanted, I couldn't do much, for all
my pocket money is exhausted, owing to so many people coming and crying
tears as large as eggs all over the living-room--quite strange people
I've never seen before. You can't conceive, Dick, the cataracts of tears
that have poured over this rug you admire so much."

"I don't understand," said Carleton, looking blank. "Unless you want to
switch me off the subject of----"

"The Poor Dear? No, indeed. But you couldn't be expected to understand,
not being a chaplain's wife at Monte Carlo. You see, they hear we're
kind, so they call, and then be