ted Edith, could image Mary Vertrees the sort of girl who would
"really flirt" with married men--she was obviously the "opposite of all
that." Edith defined her as a "thoroughbred," a "nice girl"; and the
look given to Roscoe was astounding. Roscoe's wife saw it, too, and
she was another whom it puzzled--though not because its recipient was
married.

"Because!" said Mary Vertrees, replying to Roscoe's monosyllable. "And
also because we're next-door neighbors at table, and it's dull times
ahead for both of us if we don't get along."

Roscoe was a literal young man, all stocks and bonds, and he had been
brought up to believe that when a man married he "married and settled
down." It was "all right," he felt, for a man as old as his father to
pay florid compliments to as pretty a girl as this Miss Vertrees, but
for himself--"a young married man"--it wouldn't do; and it wouldn't
even be quite moral. He knew that young married people might have
friendships, like his wife's for Lamhorn; but Sibyl and Lamhorn never
"flirted"--they were always very matter-of-fact with each other. Roscoe
would have been troubled if Sibyl had ever told Lamhorn she hoped he was
susceptible.

"Yes--we're neighbors," he said, awkwardly.

"Next-door neighbors in houses, too," she added.

"No, not exactly. I live across the street."

"Why, no!" she exclaimed, and seemed startled. "Your mother told me this
afternoon that you lived at home."

"Yes, of course I live at home. I built that new house across the
street."

"But you--" she paused, confused, and then slowly a deep color came into
her cheek. "But I understood--"

"No," he said; "my wife and I lived with the old folks the first year,
but that's all. Edith and Jim live with them, of course."

"I--I see," she said, the deep color still deepening as she turned from
him and saw, written upon a card before the gentleman at her left the
name, "Mr. James Sheridan, Jr." And from that moment Roscoe had little
enough cause for wondering what he ought to reply to her disturbing
coquetries.

Mr. James Sheridan had been anxiously waiting for the dazzling visitor
to "get through with old Roscoe," as he thought of it, and give a
bachelor a chance. "Old Roscoe" was the younger, but he had always been
the steady wheel-horse of the family. Jim was "steady" enough, but was
considered livelier than Roscoe, which in truth is not saying much for
Jim's liveliness. As their father habitually boasted, both b