e top of the steps before he could
help her.

"Some day I'll tell you what I mean," she mocked from the dark doorway.
"Good-night!" And while he stood at the bottom step looking up at her,
she vanished into the darkness of the house, leaving him out in the cool
moonlight, a fate very different from what she had been planning for him
for several hours.

"Just as old Van said, they are nothing but children, and I blame him
about trifling with her more than I thought I did; she's a dear thing
and a little pathetic in her anxiety to make good for him. Scout has
just got to do something about it all. She's a fine and devoted woman.
And beautiful--whee-ugh!" The big thirty-year-old boy ended his
soliloquy with a whistle, which showed that in a measure he had
appreciated the dangers of the last hours. One of the eternal questions
is how can a mere man be so wicked--or so good as he is often discovered
by temptation to be?

"I'll have to be publicly and finally severed from Van before I annex
him, the boob," was the soliloquy of the Violet as she prepared for her
slumber of beauty. Another question is how thin a veneer of feminine
beauty weathers indefinitely the wash of circumstances.

Then after that moonlit night in August Fate spun her web, which she
called "The Purple Slipper," rapidly, and for a number of the people
involved life became very hectic. The center of the whirl was Mr. Adolph
Meyers, though he was safely functioning with power behind the throne
occupied by Mr. Godfrey Vandeford's nonchalant and elegantly clad
figure.

"But Mr. Vandeford, sir, it is never before that you have produced a
play without a reading," he remonstrated on the morning of the day set
for the picking of the cast from those probably suitable chosen by
Chambers, the invaluable agent of the great army of those theatrically
employed. "Actors will be here from twelve o'clock even to six. How will
a choice be made?"

"I'm trusting to your hunch about the purple manuscript falling on the
day of the Violet letter, Pops," answered Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. "Make
out a little memorandum against each name that tells me what to pick. I
like the idea of going it blind that way: it may be lucky. And, Pops,
split that five-thousand-dollar check of Mr. Farraday's in three ways.
Pay Lindenberg two-fifty as his advance on the scenery for 'The Rosie
Posie Girl,' provided he furbishes up something that will do for the
little road sally of Violet's spanki