ich some bachelor
friends of his had arranged. When she pleaded being out of sorts he
urged her to pull herself together. "You're making things very
difficult for your admirers," he suggested, sweetly.

Aileen fancied she had postponed the struggle diplomatically for some
little time without ending it, when at two o'clock in the afternoon her
door-bell was rung and the name of Lynde brought up. "He said he was
sure you were in," commented the footman, on whom had been pressed a
dollar, "and would you see him for just a moment? He would not keep you
more than a moment."

Aileen, taken off her guard by this effrontery, uncertain as to whether
there might not be something of some slight import concerning which he
wished to speak to her, quarreling with herself because of her
indecision, really fascinated by Lynde as a rival for her affections,
and remembering his jesting, coaxing voice of the morning, decided to
go down. She was lonely, and, clad in a lavender housegown with an
ermine collar and sleeve cuffs, was reading a book.

"Show him into the music-room," she said to the lackey. When she
entered she was breathing with some slight difficulty, for so Lynde
affected her. She knew she had displayed fear by not going to him
before, and previous cowardice plainly manifested does not add to one's
power of resistance.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, with an assumption of bravado which she did not
feel. "I didn't expect to see you so soon after your telephone
message. You have never been in our house before, have you? Won't you
put up your coat and hat and come into the gallery? It's brighter
there, and you might be interested in some of the pictures."

Lynde, who was seeking for any pretext whereby he might prolong his
stay and overcome her nervous mood, accepted, pretending, however, that
he was merely passing and with a moment to spare.

"Thought I'd get just one glimpse of you again. Couldn't resist the
temptation to look in. Stunning room, isn't it? Spacious--and there
you are! Who did that? Oh, I see--Van Beers. And a jolly fine piece of
work it is, too, charming."

He surveyed her and then turned back to the picture where, ten years
younger, buoyant, hopeful, carrying her blue-and-white striped parasol,
she sat on a stone bench against the Dutch background of sky and
clouds. Charmed by the picture she presented in both cases, he was
genially complimentary. To-day she was stouter, ruddier--the fiber of
her ha