-you know what a dear
Quixotic soul she is--she fancies that because this fellow repaired a
puncture or something of the sort for her on the road, she's indebted
to him, and the worse he is, the more she feels that she must help him.
And affairs of that kind---- Oh, it's quite too horrible, but there have
been cases, you know, where girls as splendid and fine and well-bred as
Claire herself have been trapped into low marriages by their loyalty to
cadging adventurers!"

"Oh!" groaned Mrs. Gilson; and "Good Lord!" lamented Mr. Gilson,
delighted by the possibility of tragedy; and "Really, I'm not
exaggerating," said Jeff enthusiastically.

"What are we going to do?" demanded Mrs. Gilson; while Mr. Gilson, being
of a ready and inventive mind, exclaimed, "By Jove, you ought to kidnap
her and marry her yourself, Jeff!"

"I'd like to. But I'm too old."

They beautifully assured him that he was a blithe young thing with milk
teeth; and with a certain satisfaction Jeff suggested, "I tell you what
we might do. Of course it's an ancient stunt, but it's good. I judge
that Daggett hasn't been here at the house much. Why not have him here
so often that Claire will awaken to his crudity, and get sick of him?"

"We'll do it," thrilled Mrs. Gilson. "We'll have him for everything from
nine-course dinners with Grandmother Eaton's napkins on view, to milk
and cold ham out of the ice-box. When Claire doesn't invite him, I
will!"

CHAPTER XXXI

THE KITCHEN INTIMATE

Milt had become used to the Gilson drawing-room. He was no longer
uncomfortable in the presence of its sleek fatness, though at first (not
knowing that there were such resources as interior decorators), he had
been convinced that, to have created the room, the Gilsons must have
known everything in the world. Now he glanced familiarly at its white
paneling, its sconces like silver candlesticks, the inevitable davenport
inevitably backed by an amethyst-shaded piano lamp and a table crowded
with silver boxes and picture-frames. He liked the winsomeness of light
upon velvet and polished wood.

It was not the drawing-room but the kitchen that dismayed him.

In Schoenstrom he had known that there must somewhere be beautiful
"parlors," but he had trusted in his experience of kitchens. Kitchens,
according to his philosophy, were small smelly rooms of bare floors, and
provided with one oilcloth-covered table, one stove (the front draft
always broken and propped up wit