ady that
he hoped to see her again soon was ever to retrieve his error. It was
good-by, Charles Weyland, for sure.

However, Miss Weyland herself resolved all these perplexities by
appearing at Mrs. Paynter's supper-table before the month was out; and
this exploit she repeated at least once, and maybe twice, during the
swift winter that followed.

* * * * *

On January 14, or February 23, or it might have been March 2, Queed
unexpectedly reentered the dining-room, toward eight o'clock, with the
grave announcement that he had a piece of news. Sharlee was alone in the
room, concluding the post-prandial chores with the laying of the
Turkey-red cloth. She was in fickle vein this evening, as it chanced;
and instead of respectfully inquiring the nature of his tidings, as was
naturally and properly expected of her, she received the young man with
a fire of breezy inconsequentialities which puzzled and annoyed him
greatly.

She admitted, without pressure, that she had been hoping for his return;
had in fact been dawdling over the duties of the dining-room on that
very expectation. From there her fancy grew. Audaciously she urged his
reluctant attention to the number of her comings to Mrs. Paynter's in
recent months. With an exceedingly stagey counterfeit of a downcast eye,
she hinted at gossip lately arising from public observation of these
visits: gossip, namely, to the effect that Miss Weyland's ostensible
suppings with her aunt were neither better nor worse than so many bold
calls upon Mr. Queed. Her lip quivered alarmingly over such a
confession; undoubtedly she looked enormously abashed.

Mr. Queed, for his part, looked highly displeased and more than a shade
uncomfortable. He annihilated all such foolishness by a look and a
phrase; observed, in a stately opening, that she would hardly trouble to
deny empty rumor of this sort, since--

"I can't deny it, you see! Because," she interrupted, raising her eyes
and turning upon him a sudden dazzling yet outrageous smile--"_it's
true_."

She skipped away, smiling to herself, happily putting things away and
humming an air. Queed watched her in annoyed silence. His adamantine
gravity inspired her with an irresistible impulse to levity; so the law
of averages claimed its innings.

"While you are thinking up what to say," she rattled on, "might I ask
your advice on a sociological problem that was just laid before me by
Laura?"

"Well," he s