es."

"Well, Mr. Martel told me only last night that he thought you were an
object of pity."

Madam's jaw relaxed in amazement.

"What on earth did he mean?" she asked.

"He said you'd got 'most everything in life that he'd missed, but he'd
hate to change places with you."

She lay perfectly still, staring at him with her small restless eyes, and
when she spoke again it was to revert to the subject of burglars.

Quin was relieved. He had been skating on thin ice in discussing the
Martels, for any moment might have brought up a question concerning
Eleanor.

"I used to have a corporal that was an ex-burglar," he said, plunging
into the new subject with alacrity. "First-rate fellow, too. Last I heard
of him, he had a position as chauffeur with a rich old lady who lived
alone up in Detroit. She had two burglar-alarm systems, but the joke of
it was she made him sleep in the house for extra protection!"

"I suppose you are trying to frighten me off from engaging you?" Madam
asked.

"Not exactly," Quin smiled. "Of course I'll come if you can't get anybody
else. But there's no question of engaging me. If I come, I pay board."

Madam laughed aloud for the first time since her accident.

"Do you take me for a landlady?" she asked.

"Only when you take me for a night-watchman," said Quin.

They eyed each other steadily for a moment, then she held out her hand.

"We'll compromise," she said. "No salary and no board. We'll try it out
for a week."

The next day Quin's suit-case, containing all his worldly possessions,
was transferred from the small stuffy room over the Martels' kitchen to
the large luxurious one over the Bartletts' dining-room. It was quite the
grandest room he had ever occupied, with its massive walnut furniture and
its heavily draped windows; but, had it been stripped bare but for a
single picture, it would still have been a _chambre de luxe_ to him. The
moment he entered he discovered a photograph of Eleanor on the mantel,
and ten minutes later, when Hannah tapped at the door to say that dinner
was served, he was still standing with arms folded on the shelf in
absorbed adoration.

That first meal with the Misses Bartlett was an ordeal he never forgot.
Their formal aloofness and evident dismay at his presence were enough in
themselves to embarrass him; but combined with the necessity of choosing
the right knife and fork, of breaking his bread properly, and of removing
his spoon from his coffee-c