ally to disturb their peace, was nevertheless a case in point. He
had decided to tell her not to think anything of it--that it did
not make much difference, though to him it made all the difference in
the world. The effect of this chill history could never be undone. The
wise--and they included all his social world and many who were
not of it--could see just how he had been living. The article
which accompanied the pictures told how he had followed Jennie from
Cleveland to Chicago, how she had been coy and distant and that he had
to court her a long time to win her consent. This was to explain their
living together on the North Side. Lester realized that this was an
asinine attempt to sugar-coat the true story and it made him angry.
Still he preferred to have it that way rather than in some more brutal
vein. He took the paper out of his pocket when he arrived at the
house, spreading it on the library table. Jennie, who was close by,
watched him, for she knew what was coming.

"Here's something that will interest you, Jennie," he said dryly,
pointing to the array of text and pictures.

"I've already seen it, Lester," she said wearily. "Mrs. Stendahl
showed it to me this afternoon. I was wondering whether you had."

"Rather high-flown description of my attitude, isn't it? I didn't
know I was such an ardent Romeo."

"I'm awfully sorry, Lester," said Jennie, reading behind the dry
face of humor the serious import of this affair to him. She had long
since learned that Lester did not express his real feeling, his big
ills in words. He was inclined to jest and make light of the
inevitable, the inexorable. This light comment merely meant "this
matter cannot be helped, so we will make the best of it."

"Oh, don't feel badly about it," he went on. "It isn't anything
which can be adjusted now. They probably meant well enough. We just
happen to be in the limelight."

"I understand," said Jennie, coming over to him. "I'm sorry,
though, anyway." Dinner was announced a moment later and the incident
was closed.

But Lester could not dismiss the thought that matters were getting
in a bad way. His father had pointed it out to him rather plainly at
the last interview, and now this newspaper notoriety had capped the
climax. He might as well abandon his pretension to intimacy with his
old world. It would have none of him, or at least the more
conservative part of it would not. There were a few bachelors, a few
gay married men, some