differently, I know, but a man and a woman ought
to want to live together, or they ought not to--don't you think?
It doesn't make so much difference if a man goes off for a little
while--just so long as he doesn't stay--if he wants to come
back at all."

Lester smiled, but he respected her for the sweetness of her point
of view--he had to.

To-night, when she saw this woman so eager to talk to Lester, she
realized at once that they must have a great deal in common to talk
over; whereupon she did a characteristic thing. "Won't you excuse me
for a little while?" she asked, smiling. "I left some things uncared
for in our rooms. I'll be back."

She went away, remaining in her room as long as she reasonably
could, and Lester and Letty fell to discussing old times in earnest.
He recounted as much of his experiences as he deemed wise, and Letty
brought the history of her life up to date. "Now that you're safely
married, Lester," she said daringly, "I'll confess to you that you
were the one man I always wanted to have propose to me--and you
never did."

"Maybe I never dared," he said, gazing into her superb black eyes,
and thinking that perhaps she might know that he was not married. He
felt that she had grown more beautiful in every way. She seemed to him
now to be an ideal society figure-perfection itself--gracious,
natural, witty, the type of woman who mixes and mingles well, meeting
each new-comer upon the plane best suited to him or her.

"Yes, you thought! I know what you thought. Your real thought just
left the table."

"Tut, tut, my dear. Not so fast. You don't know what I
thought."

"Anyhow, I allow you some credit. She's charming."

"Jennie has her good points," he replied simply.

"And are you happy?"

"Oh, fairly so. Yes, I suppose I'm happy--as happy as any one
can be who sees life as it is. You know I'm not troubled with many
illusions."

"Not any, I think, kind sir, if I know you."

"Very likely, not any, Letty; but sometimes I wish I had a few. I
think I would be happier."

"And I, too, Lester. Really, I look on my life as a kind of
failure, you know, in spite of the fact that I'm almost as rich as
Croesus--not quite. I think he had some more than I have."

"What talk from you--you, with your beauty and talent, and
money--good heavens!"

"And what can I do with it? Travel, talk, shoo away silly
fortune-hunters. Oh, dear, sometimes I get so tired!"

Letty looked at Lester. In spite of Jen