ure for me, and I imagine from the confusion of the
other gentlemen present it is as much, if not more so, for them.
Personally I regret exceedingly being unable to take you more fully
into my confidence. The only reason for this partial revelation is
that I wished to be sure that I was honorably released from my oath of
abstinence. Hang it all! You fellows say something," he concluded,
sinking abruptly into his chair.

"Your style always was distinctly mid-Victorian," Jimmie murmured.
"I've got nothing to say, except that I wish I had something to say
and that if I _do_ have something to say in the near future I'll
create a real sensation! When Miss Van Astorbilt permits David to link
her name with his in the caption under a double column cut in our
leading journals, you'll get nothing like the thrill that I expect to
create with my modest announcement. I've got a real romance up my
sleeve."

"So've I, Jimmie. There is no Van Astorbilt in mine."

"Some simple bar-maid then? A misalliance in our midst. Now about you,
Peter?"

"The lady won't give me her permission to speak," Peter said. "She
knows how proud and happy I shall be when I am able to do so."

Beulah looked up suddenly.

"It is better we should marry," she said. "I didn't realize that when
I exacted that oath from you. It is from the intellectual type that
the brains to carry on the great work of the world must be
inherited."

"I pass," Jimmie murmured. "Where's the document we signed?"

"I've got it. I'll destroy it to-night and then we may all consider
ourselves free to take any step that we see fit. It was really only as
a further protection to Eleanor that we signed it."

"Eleanor will be surprised, won't she?" Gertrude suggested. Three
self-conscious masculine faces met her innocent interrogation.

"_Eleanor_," Margaret breathed, "_Eleanor_."

"I rather think she will," Jimmie chuckled irresistibly, but David
said nothing, and Peter stared unseeingly into the glass he was still
twirling on its stem.

"Eleanor will be taken care of just the same," Beulah said decisively.
"I don't think we need even go through the formality of a vote on
that."

"Eleanor will be taken care of," David said softly.

The Hutchinsons' limousine--old Grandmother Hutchinson had a motor
nowadays--was calling for Margaret, and she was to take the two other
girls home. David and Jimmie--such is the nature of men--were
disappointed in not being able to take Margare