ed me in business, he'd have been another man."

"But not Demorest," said Barker quickly.

"What dreadful secret is this about Demorest?" said Mrs. Barker
petulantly. "Is he ill?"

Both men were silent by their old common instinct. But it was Stacy
who said "No" in a way that put any further questioning at an end, and
Barker was grateful and for the moment disloyal to his Kitty.

It was with delight that Mrs. Barker had seen that the attention of
the next table was directed to them, and that even Mrs. Horncastle had
glanced from time to time at Stacy. But she was not prepared for the
evident equal effect that Mrs. Horncastle had created upon Stacy. His
cold face warmed, his critical eye softened; he asked her name. Mrs.
Barker was voluble, prejudiced, and, it seemed, misinformed.

"I know it all," said Stacy, with didactic emphasis. "Her husband was as
bad as they make them. When her life had become intolerable WITH HIM, he
tried to make it shameful WITHOUT HIM by abandoning her. She could get a
divorce a dozen times over, but she won't."

"I suppose that's what makes her so very attractive to gentlemen," said
Mrs. Barker ironically.

"I have never seen her before," continued Stacy, with business
precision, "although I and two other men are guardians of her property,
and have saved it from the clutches of her husband. They told me she was
handsome--and so she is."

Pleased with the sudden human weakness of Stacy, Barker glanced at his
wife for sympathy. But she was looking studiously another way, and the
young husband's eyes, still full of his gratification, fell upon
Mrs. Horncastle's. She looked away with a bright color. Whereupon
the sanguine Barker--perfectly convinced that she returned Stacy's
admiration--was seized with one of his old boyish dreams of the future,
and saw Stacy happily united to her, and was only recalled to the dinner
before him by its end. Then Stacy duly promenaded the great saloon with
Mrs. Barker on his arm, visited the baby in her apartments, and took an
easy leave. But he grasped Barker's hand before parting in quite his old
fashion, and said, "Come to lunch with me at the bank any day, and we'll
talk of Phil Demorest," and left Barker as happy as if the appointment
were to confer the favor he had that morning refused. But Mrs. Barker,
who had overheard, was more dubious.

"You don't suppose he asks you to talk with you about Demorest and his
stupid secret, do you?" she said scornf