telligence. It was a principle with Lise to pay no attention
to any young man who was not "presented," those venturing to approach her
with the ready formula "Haven't we met before?" being instantly
congealed. She was strict as to etiquette. But Mr. Wiley, it seemed,
could claim acquaintance with Miss Schuler, one of the ladies to whose
arm Lise's was linked, and he had the further advantage of appearing in a
large and seductive touring car, painted green, with an eagle poised
above the hood and its name, Wizard, in a handwriting rounded and bold,
written in nickel across the radiator. He greeted Miss Schuler
effusively, but his eye was on Lise from the first, and it was she he
took with, him in the front seat, indifferent to the giggling behind.
Ever since then Lise had had a motor at her disposal, and on Sundays they
took long "joy rides" beyond the borders of the state. But it must not be
imagined that Mr. Whey was the proprietor of the vehicle; nor was he a
chauffeur,--her American pride would not have permitted her to keep
company with a chauffeur: he was the demonstrator for the Wizard,
something of a wizard himself, as Lise had to admit when they whizzed
over the tarvia of the Riverside Boulevard at fifty or sixty miles an
hour with the miner cut out--a favourite diversion of Mr. Whey's, who did
not feel he was going unless he was accompanied by a noise like that of a
mitrailleuse in action. Lise, experiencing a ravishing terror, hung on to
her hat with one hand and to Mr. Wiley with the other, her code
permitting this; permitting him also, occasionally, when they found
themselves in tenebrous portions of Slattery's Riverside Park, to put his
arm around her waist and kiss her. So much did Lise's virtue allow, and
no more, the result being that he existed in a tantalizing state of hope
and excitement most detrimental to the nerves.

He never lost, however,--in public at least, or before Lise's
family,--the fine careless, jaunty air of the demonstrator, of the
free-lance for whom seventy miles an hour has no terrors; the automobile,
apparently, like the ship, sets a stamp upon its votaries. No Elizabethan
buccaneer swooping down on defenceless coasts ever exceeded in audacity
Mr. Wiley's invasion of quiet Fillmore Street. He would draw up with an
ear-splitting screaming of brakes in front of the clay-yellow house, and
sometimes the muffler, as though unable to repress its approval of the
performance, would let out a