I'm jumping at conclusions. I hope I'm woman of
the world enough to know that a man who's taken with a pretty face and
smart talk isn't going to rush right into matrimony because of that. It
wasn't so much what Curtis Jadwin said--though, dear me suz, he talked
enough about you--as what he didn't say. I could tell. He was thinking
hard. He was hit, Laura. I know he was. And Charlie said he spoke about
you again this morning at breakfast. Charlie makes me tired sometimes,"
she added irrelevantly.

"Charlie?" repeated Laura.

"Well, of course I spoke to him about Jadwin, and how taken he seemed
with you, and the man roared at me."

"_He_ didn't believe it, then."

"Yes he did--when I could get him to talk seriously about it, and when
I made him remember how Mr. Jadwin had spoken in the carriage coming
home."

Laura curled her leg under her and sat nursing her foot and looking
into the fire. For a long time neither spoke. A little clock of brass
and black marble began to chime, very prettily, the half hour of nine.
Mrs. Cressler observed:

"That Sheldon Corthell seems to be a very agreeable kind of a young
man, doesn't he?"

"Yes," replied Laura thoughtfully, "he is agreeable."

"And a talented fellow, too," continued Mrs. Cressler. "But somehow it
never impressed me that there was very much to him."

"Oh," murmured Laura indifferently, "I don't know."

"I suppose," Mrs. Cressler went on, in a tone of resignation, "I
suppose he thinks the world and all of _you?_"

Laura raised a shoulder without answering.

"Charlie can't abide him," said Mrs. Cressler. "Funny, isn't it what
prejudices men have? Charlie always speaks of him as though he were a
higher order of glazier. Curtis Jadwin seems to like him.... What do
you think of him, Laura--of Mr. Jadwin?"

"I don't know," she answered, looking vaguely into the fire. "I thought
he was a strong man--mentally I mean, and that he would be kindly
and--and--generous. Somehow," she said, musingly, "I didn't think he
would be the sort of man that women would take to, at first--but then I
don't know. I saw very little of him, as I say. He didn't impress me as
being a woman's man."

"All the better," said the other. "Who would want to marry a woman's
man? I wouldn't. Sheldon Corthell is that. I tell you one thing, Laura,
and when you are as old as I am, you'll know it's true: the kind of a
man that men like--not women--is the kind of a man that makes the best
husband.