nt to hear that he has a gift I did not suspect."

"Oh, I dare say he has others," retorted Madame Alta, "but I came about
these very speculations to-day," she added, "and since he isn't at
home--if you'll let me--I'll leave a note on his desk. I start for
Chicago to-night for a month of continuous hard work. Until you know
what it is to race about the country for your life," she wound up
merrily, "never stop to waste your pity on a day labourer."

With a smiling apology to Gerty, she crossed to Kemper's desk, where she
wrote a short note which she proceeded coolly to place in an envelope
and seal. As she moistened the flap of the envelope with her lips, she
turned to glance at Laura over her ermine stole.

"I hope you'll remember to tell him that my visit was by no means thrown
away, since I saw you," she remarked, with her exaggerated sweetness.

"Why not wait and tell him yourself?" suggested Laura, so composedly
that she wondered why her heart was beating quickly, "he'll probably be
back in a few minutes for tea, and in that case it wouldn't be
necessary for me to deliver so flattering a message."

"Oh, but I want you to--I particularly want you to," insisted the other,
creating, as she rose, a lovely commotion by the flutter of her lace
veil and her ostrich feathers. "I send him my liveliest congratulations,
and the part he'll like best is that I am able to send them by you."

The door closed softly after her, and Gerty, going to the window, threw
it open with a bang which served as an outlet to the emotion she lacked
either the courage or the opportunity to put into words.

"I don't like her perfume," she observed, with an affected contortion of
her nostrils, "there's something to be said for the odour of sanctity,
after all."

"Why, I thought it delicious," returned Laura, as if astonished. "It
even occurred to me to ask her where she got it."

"Well, I'm thankful you didn't," exclaimed Gerty; and she concluded
dismally after a moment, "What hurts me most is to think I've wasted
bouquets on her over the footlights, for a more perfectly odious
person--"

"I found her wonderfully handsome," remarked Laura, in a voice which had
a curious quality of remoteness, as if she spoke from some dream-like
state of mental abstraction. "Wonderfully handsome," she insisted,
indignant at the scornful denial in Gerty's look.

"Well, it's the kind of handsomeness that makes me want to scratch her
in the face," rejoined