rt junk, its rotten old tapestries, its
unlovely genuine antiques, its room after room of tasteless
magnificence, suggesting a museum, or rather the combination home and
salesroom of an art dealer. This evening he found himself curious,
critical, disposed to license a long-suppressed sense of humor. While
he was waiting for Josephine to come down to the small salon into which
he had been shown, her older sister drifted in, on the way to a late
dinner and ball. She eyed him admiringly from head to foot.

"You've _such_ an air, Fred," said she. "You should hear the butler on the
subject of you. He says that of all the men who come to the house you
are most the man of the world. He says he could tell it by the way you
walk in and take off your hat and coat and throw them at him."

Norman laughed and said, "I didn't know. I must stop that."

"Don't!" cried Mrs. Bellowes. "You'll break his heart. He adores it. You
know, servants dearly love to be treated as servants. Anyone who thinks
the world loves equality knows very little about human nature. Most
people love to look up, just as most women love to be ruled. No, you
must continue to be the master, the man of the world, Fred."

She was busy with her gorgeous and trailing wraps and with her cigarette
or she would have seen his confusion. He was recalling his scene with
the typewriter girl. Not much of the man of the world, then and there,
certainly. What a grotesque performance for a man of his position, for a
serious man of any kind! And how came he to permit such a person to
mimic Josephine Burroughs, a lady, the woman to whom he was engaged? In
these proud and pretentious surroundings he felt contemptibly
guilty--and dazed wonder at his own inexplicable folly and weakness.

Mrs. Bellowes departed before Josephine came down. So there was no
relief for his embarrassment. He saw that she too felt constrained.
Instead of meeting him half way in embrace and kiss, as she usually did,
she threw him a kiss and pretended to be busy lighting a cigarette and
arranging the shades of the table lamp. "Well, I saw your 'poor little
creature,'" she began. She was splendidly direct in all her dealings,
after the manner of people who have never had to make their own way--to
cajole or conciliate or dread the consequences of frankness.

"I told you you'd not find her interesting."

"Oh, she was a nice little girl," replied Josephine with elaborate
graciousness--and Norman, the "take o