fastidious nose.

"Never, I'm happy to say. But he doesn't sound attractive. However, tell
me all about them. There seems a good chance that they may get you into
trouble."

"That's what she said."

"It's the one gleam of intelligence I see in the situation," commented
his candid friend. "Is she pretty?"

"As lovely in her way as you are. Think you could help her any?"
wheedled Laurie.

"I doubt it. I'm too selfish to be bothered with girls who are in
trouble. I'll tell you who _can_ help her--Sonya Orleneff."

"Of course!" Laurie beamed at her. "Wonder why I didn't think of that."

"Probably because it was so obvious. Sonya is in town, as it happens,
stopping at the Warwick. She has brought the Infant Samuel to New York
to have his adenoids cut out. Samuel made a devastating visit here this
morning. He's getting as fat as a little pig, and when he walks he puffs
like a worn-out automobile going up a steep grade. He came up my stairs
on 'low,' and I'm sure they heard him on the avenue. I almost offered
him a glass of gasolene. But he is a lamb," she added reflectively.
Oddly enough, Samuel, late of New York's tenements, was another of her
favorites.

Laurie was following his own thoughts. Sonya was in town! Then, however
complicated his problem, it was already as good as solved.

"My dinner will be up soon," suggested Louise. "Are you dining with me?"

He glanced at his watch, reproachfully shook his head at it, and rose.

"Three hours of me are all you can have this time. But I'll probably
drop around about dawn to-morrow."

"Nice boy!" Her hot hand caught his and held it. "Laurie, if--if--I
should send for you suddenly sometime--you'd come and--stand by?"

All the gaiety was wiped from his face. His brilliant black eyes, oddly
softened, looked into her haughty blue ones with sudden understanding.

"You bet I will! Any time, anything! You'll remember that? Send for me
as if I were Bob. Perhaps you've forgotten it," he added, more lightly,
"but I happen to be your younger brother."

For a moment her face twisted. The mask of her arrogance fell from it.

"Bob didn't know," she said. "If he had felt the least suspicion he
wouldn't have gone so far, or for so long. I thought I had three or four
months--"

Laurie bent and kissed her cheek.

"I'm coming in every day," he said, and abruptly left the room.

In the lower hall he stopped to take in the full real realization of
what he had discovered. Louis