rom which to date a passion, and
she remembered now that ten years ago Kemper had secured a divorce from
his wife in some Western court. There had been no particular scandal, no
damning charges on either side; and a club wit had remarked at the time
that the only possible ground for a separation was the fact that Mrs.
Kemper had grown jealous of her husband's after-dinner cigar. Since then
other and varied rumours had reached Gerty's ears, until finally there
had blown a veritable gale concerning a certain Madame Alta, who sang
melting soprano parts in Italian opera. Then this, too, had passed,
and, with the short memory of city livers, Gerty had forgotten alike the
gossip and the heroines of the gossip, until she noted now the lines of
deeper harassment in Kemper's face. These coming so suddenly after six
months of Europe caused her to wonder if the affair with the prima donna
had been really an entanglement of the heart.

"Well, I may not be as fast as an automobile," she presently admitted.

"But you're twice as dangerous," he retorted gaily.

For an instant the pleasant humour in his eyes held her speechless.

"Ah, well, you aren't a coward," she answered coolly enough at last.
Then her tone changed, and as she settled herself under her fur rugs she
made a cordial inviting gesture. "Come in with me and I'll take you to
Laura Wilde's," she said; "she's a genius, and you ought to know her
before the world finds her out."

With a protesting laugh Kemper held up his gloved finger.

"God forbid!" he exclaimed with a shrug which struck her as a slightly
foreign affectation. "The lady may be a female Milton, but Perry tells
me that she isn't pretty."

He touched her hand again, met her indignant defence of Laura with a nod
of smiling irony, and then, as her carriage started, he turned rapidly
down Sixty-ninth Street in the direction of the Park.

In Gerty the chance meeting had awakened a slumbering interest which she
had half forgotten, and as she drove down Fifth Avenue toward Laura's
distant home she found herself wondering idly if he would let many days
go by before he came again. The thought was still in her mind when the
carriage turned into Gramercy Park and stopped before the old brown
house hidden in creepers in which Laura lived. So changed by this time,
however, was Gerty's mood that, after leaving her carriage, she stood
hesitating from indecision upon the sidewalk. The few bared trees in the
snow, the