fancy Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself."

"No girl knows how to take care of herself--till it's too late."

"And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of
self-defence?"

"What do you call the surest means of self-defence?"

"Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the
marriage tie."

She made an impatient gesture. "How should you like to marry that kind
of a girl?"

"Immensely--if she were my kind of girl in other respects."

She took up the argument at another point.

"You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect young
girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation--" She broke
off, wondering why she had spoken.

Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning of
their discussion. "What you tell me is immensely flattering to my
oratorical talent--but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure you
that Miss Van Sideren doesn't have to have her thinking done for her.
She's quite capable of doing it herself."

"You seem very familiar with her mental processes!" flashed unguardedly
from his wife.

He looked up quietly from the pages he was cutting.

"I should like to be," he answered. "She interests me."

II

If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied to
Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every one was ready to
excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed that John
Arment was "impossible," and hostesses gave a sigh of relief at the
thought that it would no longer be necessary to ask him to dine.

There had been no scandal connected with the divorce: neither side had
accused the other of the offence euphemistically described as
"statutory." The Arments had indeed been obliged to transfer their
allegiance to a State which recognized desertion as a cause for
divorce, and construed the term so liberally that the seeds of
desertion were shown to exist in every union. Even Mrs. Arment's second
marriage did not make traditional morality stir in its sleep. It was
known that she had not met her second husband till after she had parted
from the first, and she had, moreover, replaced a rich man by a poor
one. Though Clement Westall was acknowledged to be a rising lawyer, it
was generally felt that his fortunes would not rise as rapidly as his
reputation. The Westalls would probably always have to live quietly and
go out to dinner in cabs. Could ther