t want them
to be ashamed of me."

"Why, Mr. Harrigan," said Courtlandt, letting his chair fall into place so
that he could lay a hand affectionately upon the other's knee, "neither of
them would be worth their salt if they ever felt ashamed of you. What do
you care what strangers think or say? You know. You've seen life. You've
stepped off the stage and carried with you the recollection of decent
living, of playing square, of doing the best you could. The worst
scoundrels I ever met never made any mistake with their forks. Perhaps you
don't know it, but my father became rich because he could judge a man's
worth almost at sight. And he kept this fortune and added to it because he
chose half a dozen friends and refused to enlarge the list. If you became
his friend, he had good reason for making you such."

"Well, we did have some good times together," Harrigan admitted, with a
glow in his heart. "And I guess after all that I'll go to the ball with
Molly. I don't mind teas like we had at the colonel's, but dinners and
balls I have drawn the line at. I'll take the plunge to-night. There's
always some place for a chap to smoke."

"At the Villa Rosa? I'll be there myself; and any time you are in doubt,
don't be afraid to question me."

"You're in class A," heartily. "But there's one thing that worries
me,--Nora. She's gone up so high, and she's such a wonderful girl, that
all the men in Christendom are hiking after her. And some of 'em.... Well,
Molly says it isn't good form to wallop a man over here. Why, she went on
her lonesome to India and Japan, with nobody but her maid; and never put
us hep until she landed in Bombay. The men out that way aren't the best.
East of Suez, you know. And that chap yesterday, Herr Rosen. Did you see
the way he hiked by me when I let him in? He took me to be the round
number before one. And he didn't speak a dozen words to any but Nora. Not
that I mind that; but it was something in the way he did it that scratched
me the wrong way. The man who thinks he's going to get Nora by walking
over me, has got a guess coming. Of course, it's meat and drink to Molly
to have sons of grand dukes and kings trailing around. She says it gives
tone."

"Isn't she afraid sometimes?"

"Afraid? I should say not! There's only three things that Molly's afraid
of these days: a spool of thread, a needle, and a button."

Courtlandt laughed frankly. "I really don't think you need worry about
Herr Rosen. He has