g to be more careful for another's name than for
his own. He had grown more reckless since his return, but it had not
injured him with his set. It flattered his pride to be credited with
the conquest of so cold and unapproachable a Diana as Louise Wentworth.

"What was more natural?" said Mrs. Nailor. After all, Ferdy Wickersham
was her real romance, and she was his, notwithstanding all the
attentions he had paid Alice Yorke. "Besides," said the amiable lady,
"though Norman Wentworth undoubtedly lavishes large sums on his wife,
and gives her the means to gratify her extravagant tastes, I have
observed that he is seen quite as much with Mrs. Lancaster as with her,
and any woman of spirit will resent this. You need not tell me that he
would be so complacent over all that driving and strolling and
box-giving that Ferdy does for her if he did not find his divertisement
elsewhere."

Mrs. Nailor even went to the extent of rallying Ferdy on the subject.

"You are a naughty boy. You have no right to go around here making women
fall in love with you as you do," she said, with that pretended reproof
which is a real encouragement.

"One might suppose I was like David, who slew his tens of thousands,"
answered Ferdy. "Which of my victims are you attempting to rescue?"

"You know?"

As Ferdy shook his head, she explained further.

"I don't say that it isn't natural she should find you
more--more--sympathetic than a man who is engrossed in business when he
is not engrossed in dangling about a pair of blue eyes; but you ought
not to do it. Think of her."

"I thought you objected to my thinking of her?" said Mr. Wickersham,
lightly.

Mrs. Nailor tapped him with her fan to show her displeasure.

"You are so provoking. Why won't you be serious?"

"Serious? I never was more serious in my life. Suppose I tell you I
think of her all the time?" He looked at her keenly, then broke into a
laugh as he read her delight in the speech. "Don't you think I am
competent to attend to my own affairs, even if Louise Caldwell is the
soft and unsophisticated creature you would make her? I am glad you did
not feel it necessary to caution me about her husband?" His eyes gave
a flash.

Mrs. Nailor hastened to put herself right--that is, on the side of the
one present, for with her the absent was always in the wrong.

Wickersham improved his opportunities with the ability of a veteran.
Little by little he excited Mrs. Wentworth's jealousy. Nor