the matter?"

She imprisoned my hand in both of hers and patted it.

"Nothing that cannot be helped, my dear," she said determinedly. "Now
I am going to forbid asking another question until we have had our
luncheon. I decline to discuss the affairs of the nation or my own on
an empty stomach, and my breakfast this morning consisted of the juice
of two lemons and a small cup of coffee."

"Why?" I asked mechanically, although I knew the answer.

"The awful penalty of trying to keep one's figure," she returned
lightly. "But I certainly am going to break training this noon. I am
simply starved."

Her tone and words were reassuring, although I still felt there was
something behind her light manner which intimately concerned me. But I
had learned to count on her downright honesty, and her words, "Nothing
that cannot be helped, my dear," steadied me, gave me hope that no
matter what trouble she had to tell me, she had also a panacea for it.

We discussed our luncheon leisurely. Under the influence of the
bracing air, the beautiful view, the delicious viands, I gradually
forgot my worries, or at least pushed them back into a corner of my
brain.

As we lingered over the ices, Lillian leaned over the table to me.

"Will you do me a favor?" she asked abruptly.

"Try me," I smiled back at her.

"Ask me to your home for a week's stay. I have an idea you need my
fine Italian hand at work about now."

I looked at her wonderingly, then I began to tremble.

"Don't look like that," she commanded sharply. "Nothing dreadful is
the matter, but that Dicky bird of yours needs his wings clipped a
bit, and I think I am the person to apply the shears."

So there was something wrong with Dicky after all!

"Of course, it's that Draper cat," said Lillian Underwood, and the
indignation in her voice was a salve to my wounded pride.

"Then you know," I faltered.

"Of course, I know, you poor child; know, too, how distressed you
have been, although Dicky doesn't dream that I gathered that from his
ingenuous plea for the lady."

My brain whirled. Dicky making an ingenuous plea to Lillian Underwood
for his protege, Grace Draper! I could not understand it.

"If Dicky has spoken of my feeling toward Miss Draper, even to you," I
began stormily, feeling every instinct outraged.

"Don't, dear child." Mrs. Underwood reached her firm, cool hand across
the table, and put it over my hot, trembling fingers. "You can't fight
this thing by g