.

When I had finished Lillian leaned back in her chair and laughed
lightly.

"Is that all?" she demanded. "I thought you had something really
serious to tell me. If you'll do exactly as I tell you we'll beat this
game hands down."

"I'll do just as you say," I responded, although it humiliated me to
be put in the position of trying to beat any game, the stake of which
was my husband's affections.

"Well, then, that is settled," she said, rising. "Now, for the first
gun of the campaign. Call Dicky up, tell him you just lunched with me,
and you are ready to go home any time he is."

"Oh, I can't do that," I said. "I couldn't bear to feel that he might
prefer to take the train with her."

Lillian came to my side, gripped my shoulder hard, and looked into my
eyes grimly.

"See here," she said, "are you going to be a baby or a woman in this
thing?"

I swallowed hard. I knew she was right.

"I'll do whatever you wish," I responded meekly.

So I called Dicky on the telephone, and after explaining my unexpected
presence in town, arranged to meet him at the station and go home with
him.

"Sounds as if we were going to dine with Friend Husband," said
Lillian, as I hung up the receiver.

"Yes, we are going home by trolley from Jamaica. It ought to be a
beautiful trip. Dicky must have been thinking of such a trip before,
for he told me there was a train to Jamaica at five minutes of four
which connects with the trolley, and he usually gets mixed on the
schedule of the trains from Marvin."

"What's that?" Lillian stopped short, then turned the subject. "How
would you like to go down to the station on top of a bus?" she asked,
"or would you prefer a taxi?"

"The bus by all means," I returned.

"I see we are kindred souls," she said. "I dote on a bus ride myself."

We were within a few blocks of the railroad station when she said:

"I hope I am mistaken, but I think Miss Draper will be a member of
your trolley trip home, and I want you to be prepared to act as if it
were the thing you most desired."

"If you are right, I will not go," I said, a cold fury at my heart. "I
will take the next train home."

"You will do no such thing." Lillian's voice was imperative. "You
promised you would let me be your big sister in this thing, and you've
got to let me run it my way!"

"See here, my dear," her tones were caressing now. "You must use the
weapons of a woman of the world in this situation, not those of an
unso