time you are glad I meddled," he said with easy good
humor. "You might have been walking on a peg-stick, Queen Vic, if I
hadn't butted in. Do you have to use your crutches now?"

"Crutches! I should say not. I don't even use a cane. See here!"

She rose and, steadying herself, walked slowly and painfully to the door
and back.

"Bully for you!" said Quin, helping her back into the chair. "Now what
were we talking about?"

"You were trying to hold a brief for Eleanor."

"So I was. You see, I had an idea that if you'd let me put the case up to
you fair and square, maybe you'd see it in a different light."

"Well, that's where you were mistaken."

"How do you know? You haven't listened to me yet!"

Madam glared at him grimly.

"Go ahead," he said. "Get it out of your system."

"Well, it's like this," Quin plunged into his subject. "Next July Miss
Nell will be of age and have her own money to do as she likes with, won't
she?"

"She won't have much," interpolated Madam. "Twenty thousand won't take
her far."

"It will take her to New York and let her live pretty fine for two or
three years. Everybody will cotton up to her and flatter her and make her
think she's a second Julia Marlowe, and meantime they'll be helping her
spend her money. Now, my plan is this. Why don't you give her just barely
enough to live on, and let her try it out on the seamy side for the next
six months? Nobody will know who she is or what's coming to her, and
maybe when she comes up against the real thing she won't be so keen about
it."

Madam followed him closely, and for a moment it looked as if the common
sense of his argument appealed to her. Then her face set like a vise.

"No!" she thundered her decision. "It would be nothing less than handing
her over bodily to that pompous old biped Claude Martel! For the next six
months she has got to stay right here, where I can know what she is doing
and where she is!"

"Do you know where she was last night?" Quin played his last trump.

She shot a suspicious look at him from under her shaggy brows.

"You said she was at the Martels'."

"I did not. I said she was all right and you'd hear from her to-day."

"Where was she?"

"She was on the way to Chicago to join Mr. Phipps."

He could not have aimed his blow more accurately. Its effect was so
appalling that he feared the consequences. Her face blanched to an ashy
white and her eyes were fixed with terror.

"She--she--hasn't marrie