idly.

"Why doesn't your husband come to see me himself?"

She drew back a trifle, but her recovery was swift. "Oh, he intends
to, naturally. I'm just preparing the way... Fred's a perfect dear and
all that, but he is a little bit reserved about some things... It
would be so much easier for him to ask a favor for some one else... Of
course, he'd be perfectly furious if he knew that I had come here. But
you understand, Mr. Hilmer, I want to do all I can... I'd make _any_
sacrifice for Fred."

She paused to give him a chance to put in a word, but he sat silent.
It was plain that he didn't intend to help out her growing
embarrassment.

"It's all come out of a clear sky," she went on, trailing the fringe
of her beaded hand bag across her shoe tops. "He only told me last
night... There isn't any use pretending ... he hasn't any capital to
work on. And until the premiums begin to come in there'll be office
rent and a stenographer's salary piling up ... and our living expenses
in the bargain... A friend of his is putting up some money, but I
can't imagine it's a whole lot... I'm a little bit upset about it, of
course. I wish I could really do something to help him."

She knew from his look that he intended to hurl another disconcerting
question at her.

"Well, if you want to help him, why don't you?" he quizzed.

"Why, I ... why, I'm not fit for anything, really," she tried to throw
back.

"My wife said you were pretty efficient at the Red Cross."

"Oh, but that was different!"

"Why?"

"Well, I can't just explain, but it's easy to do something you ...
you..."

"Feel you don't have to," he finished for her, ironically.

She shrugged petulantly. "What do you want me to do? Solicit
insurance?"

He smiled. "That's what you're doing now, isn't it?"

"Mr. _Hilmer_!" She rose majestically in her seat.

He continued to sit, but she was conscious that his eyes were sweeping
her from head to foot with frank appraisal.

"A pretty woman has a good chance to get by with almost anything she
sets her mind on," he said, finally.

She drew in a barely perceptible breath. The blunt tip of his shoe was
jammed squarely against her toe. She withdrew her foot, but she sat
down again.

"I really ought to be angry with you, Mr. Hilmer," she purred at him,
archly. "It's very nice of you to attempt to be so gallant, but, after
all, talk _is_ pretty cheap, isn't it?... So far I don't seem to be
making good as a solicitor. So