me out
with it, Nolla, and tell me just how far you have complicated yourself
with Paul in love, and with me in our business venture?"

"Not at all, Poll. That is what I wish to impress upon you--that I am no
deeper in the love tangle than you are with Tom."

"All right, then, Nolla. Now I'll confess, if you promise me to do
likewise. Is it a bargain?"

"If you wish. But let me say beforehand, I have no more to confess than
you know of already."

"It's a pact! Shake, Nolla," exclaimed Polly, holding out her hand.

Of course Eleanor was more than amazed at such a to-do over what she
considered a natural outcome of human attraction for Polly, and she shook
the hand extended to seal the compact.

"There now! I'll confess first. Last night, when I found poor Tom in such
dire condition and wanting to die at once, I told his mother I would
comfort him, somewhat, by wishing him a merry Christmas and showing him
my business card. You know, the ones we just got back from the engravers
late Christmas Eve.

"Well, I found him in such a pitiable way that I was sorry the moment I
handed him my card. He took it so differently from what I had expected.
When he raved about dying and nothing to live for, I was at my wit's end.
Finally, just after the basin in which he was boiling his feet slipped
from under him, and sat him down unkindly upon the floor, I was moved to
encourage him if he would but cheer up and think of living a little
longer.

"Nolla, he took advantage of my weakness and wormed a promise from me to
consider myself engaged to him, unless I found some one I liked much
better within the next two years. Now tell me, Nolla, because you are
educated in affairs like this--where do I stand?"

Polly's anxiety was so amusing to Eleanor and the whole situation so like
a farce to her maturer love-affair, that she laughed merrily. But Polly
was too concerned to take offence at the merriment.

"Oh, Polly! What a little lamb you are, to be sure! How lucky for you
that I am always at hand to keep you from being led to the slaughter--not
altar!" Eleanor laughed again at her clever play on the hackneyed phrase.

"That doesn't answer my question, Nolla. I am most serious in this matter
and I do not wish to hear more ridicule from you."

"I'm not ridiculing you or the awful mess you have made of your life,"
retorted Eleanor with a sly grin, "but I cannot help giving vent to my
risibles when you take it all so seriously. I won