in a
position where the sheriff may walk in upon her any day."

"Handy men to have around the house,--sheriffs. I knew a deputy
sheriff once that helped the lady of the house do a baby wash while he
was standing around in charge of the place. All the servants had
deserted, and--"

"You pretend to be Nancy's friend, and you're the only thing remotely
approaching a lawyer that she has, and yet you can shake with joy at
the thought of her going into bankruptcy."

"That isn't what I'm shaking with joy about."

"Nancy must have spent at least twice the amount of her original
investment."

"Just about," Billy agreed cheerfully.

Caroline turned large reproachful eyes on him.

"Billy, how can you?"

"Listen to me, Caroline, honey love, it will be all right. Nancy isn't
so crazy as she seems. She is running wild a little, I admit, but
there's no danger of the sheriff or any other disaster. She knows what
she's doing, and she's playing safe, though I admit it's an
extraordinary game."

"She's unhappy," Caroline said. "You don't suppose she's going to
marry Dick to get out of the scrape, and that she's suffering because
she's had to make that compromise."

"No, I don't," said Billy.

"I can't imagine anything more dreadful than to give up your
career--your independence because you were beaten before you could
demonstrate it."

"Let's go right in here," Billy said, guiding her by the arm through
the door of the grill of the Cafe des Artistes which she was ignoring
in her absorption.

It was early but the place was already crowded with the assortment of
upper cut Bohemians, Frenchmen, and other discriminating diners to
whom the cafe owed its vogue. Billy and Caroline found a snowy table
by the window, a table so small that it scarcely seemed to separate
them.

"If it's Dick that Nancy's depending on," Caroline shook out her
mammoth napkin vigorously, "then I think the whole situation is
dreadful."

"I don't see why," Billy argued; "have him to fall back on--that's
what men are for."

"Your opinion of women, Billy Boynton, just about tallies with the
most conservative estimate of the Middle Ages."

"Charmed, I'm sure," he grinned, then his evil genius prompting, he
continued. "Isn't that just about what you have me for--to fall back
on? You're fond of me. You know I'll be there if the bottom drops out.
You're sure of me, and you're holding me in reserve against the time
when you feel like concentrating your