ay carefully around the
house, Lem in the machine still honking for them to hurry.

At the corner she paused again. "You are very clever, aren't you,
Eveley?"

"Well, yes, I rather think I am," admitted Eveley.

"How would you go about it?"

"The way Lem does," came the quick retort, and Miriam laughed, suddenly
and lightly.

She was very quiet as they drove down Fifth Street. Only once she spoke.

"It was the seventh step, wasn't it, Eveley?"

"Yes, the seventh."

"The Revolution of the Seventh Step," she said, laughing again.

This was nonsense to Lem Landis, but he did not ask questions. Women
always talked such rot to each other. And he was wondering if Mrs. Cartle
would surely be at the ball?

"The way Lem does."

The words were startlingly sufficient. From five years of painful
experience, Mrs. Landis knew how Lem did it. And so on this evening, as
she stood beside him in a corner of the ballroom after their first
greetings, and looked as he did with eager speculative eyes about the
wide room, seeking, seeking, she felt a curious sympathy and harmony
between herself and her husband. She knew without turning her head when
the sudden brightening in his eyes came; and then he slowly made his way
to the dim corner where Mrs. Cartle sat waiting.

But Miriam was not so quickly satisfied. There was Dan O'Falley, but his
was such fulsome effrontery. There was Clifford Eggleton, but he had been
a sweetheart of Miriam's in the old days before Lem came, and that seemed
hardly fair. There was Hal Jervis, but he was too utterly wax in woman's
hands to give her any semblance of thrill. Then her eyes rested on a
profile in another corner of the room--a dark sleek head, a dark thin
face, and the clear outline of one merry eye. Miriam appraised the head
speculatively. Who in the world could it be? That merry eye looked very
enticing. Ah, now she could see better--he was talking to the Merediths.
Then the merry-eyed one was a stranger--so much the better, the
uncertainty of him pleased her. She was very weary of those she knew so
well. She moved happily that way, suddenly surprised to know that she was
not at all concerned because her husband sat in the distant corner with
Mrs. Cartle. She felt for him to-night only a whimsical comradeship.
Stopping many times on her way to exchange a word and a smile, she
finally drew near the corner where the sleek dark head and the merry eye
had drawn her. Mrs. Meredith, seeing he