ed your
protection."

Mrs. Trenor sat up with an exclamation. "Lily!----PERCY? Do you mean to
say you've actually done it?"

Miss Bart smiled. "I only mean to say that Mr. Gryce and I are getting to
be very good friends."

"H'm--I see." Mrs. Trenor fixed a rapt eye upon her. "You know they say
he has eight hundred thousand a year--and spends nothing, except on some
rubbishy old books. And his mother has heart-disease and will leave him a
lot more. OH, LILY, DO GO SLOWLY," her friend adjured her.

Miss Bart continued to smile without annoyance. "I shouldn't, for
instance," she remarked, "be in any haste to tell him that he had a lot
of rubbishy old books."

"No, of course not; I know you're wonderful about getting up people's
subjects. But he's horribly shy, and easily shocked, and--and----"

"Why don't you say it, Judy? I have the reputation of being on the hunt
for a rich husband?"

"Oh, I don't mean that; he wouldn't believe it of you--at first," said
Mrs. Trenor, with candid shrewdness. "But you know things are rather
lively here at times--I must give Jack and Gus a hint--and if he thought
you were what his mother would call fast--oh, well, you know what I mean.
Don't wear your scarlet CREPE-DE-CHINE for dinner, and don't smoke if you
can help it, Lily dear!"

Lily pushed aside her finished work with a dry smile. "You're very kind,
Judy: I'll lock up my cigarettes and wear that last year's dress you sent
me this morning. And if you are really interested in my career, perhaps
you'll be kind enough not to ask me to play bridge again this evening."

"Bridge? Does he mind bridge, too? Oh, Lily, what an awful life you'll
lead! But of course I won't--why didn't you give me a hint last night?
There's nothing I wouldn't do, you poor duck, to see you happy!"

And Mrs. Trenor, glowing with her sex's eagerness to smooth the course of
true love, enveloped Lily in a long embrace.

"You're quite sure," she added solicitously, as the latter extricated
herself, "that you wouldn't like me to telephone for Lawrence Selden?"

"Quite sure," said Lily.

The next three days demonstrated to her own complete satisfaction Miss
Bart's ability to manage her affairs without extraneous aid.

As she sat, on the Saturday afternoon, on the terrace at Bellomont, she
smiled at Mrs. Trenor's fear that she might go too fast. If such a
warning had ever been needful, the years had taught her a salutary
lesson, and she flattered herse