f
taking her North with me."

This was a serious suggestion, but Tucker could think of no better way
to meet it than to raise his eyebrows; and Crane went off whistling to
dress for dinner.

He whistled not only going upstairs, but he whistled in his bath and
while he was shaving. The sound annoyed Tucker in the next room.

"It almost seems," he thought, "as if he were glad to see the woman
again on any terms." And yet, he, Tucker, knew that she considered Crane
quite a commonplace young man--not at all like a hero in the third act.

The way Crane had taken his suggestions was distressing. Tucker did not
feel that he thoroughly understood what was in the younger man's mind.
His first intention to tell Mrs. Falkener nothing began to fade. It
would have been all very well if Burton had been sensible and had been
willing to send the cook away and he, Tucker, had been able to engage
her, to ignore the whole matter to Mrs. Falkener. Indeed, it would have
been hard to explain it. But, of course, if Burton was going to be
obstinate about it, Mrs. Falkener's aid might be absolutely necessary.

"After all," he thought, "candor is the best policy among friends."

He dressed quickly and was not mistaken in his belief that Mrs.
Falkener would have done the same. She was waiting for him in the
drawing-room. They had a clear fifteen minutes before dinner.

"Now tell me, my dear Solon," she said, "just what you think of the
situation."

"I think badly of it."

"Yes," said Mrs. Falkener, not yet quite appreciating the seriousness of
his tone. "I do, myself. That idiotic housemaid, Lily--I could have told
him that name would never do--hooked me twice wrong, and left my
daughter's dirty boots on top of her best tea-gown."

"Ah, if incompetence were all we had to complain of!"

"The cook?"

"Is perfection, as far as cooking goes. But in other respect--Really, my
dear Mrs. Falkener, I am in doubt whether you should let your daughter
stay in this house--at least, until Burton comes to his senses."

"You must tell me just what you mean."

Tucker decided to tell the story reluctantly.

"Why, it happened this afternoon, Burton was away with his horses, and
quite by accident I came upon his pretty cook in the arms of a strange
young man, a person vastly her social superior, one of the young
landholders of the neighborhood, I should say. Seemed to assume the most
confident right to be in Burton's kitchen--a man he may know in t