Denmark is on the map, don't you?"

"I think I do. It's there by Germany isn't it?"

"Quite right. But let me get the atlas, and we'll look it up."

He was on his feet when she summoned her forces for a question. "Do
you read like this to--to the girl you're engaged to?"

"No," he said, reddening. "She--she doesn't like it. She won't let me.
But wait a minute. I'll go and get the atlas."

"'On the same day that he marries another,' Letty repeated to herself,
as she sat alone, 'your heart will break, and you will drift as
sea-foam on the water.' 'So let it be,' said the little mermaid."

Chapter XVIII

On the next afternoon Allerton reported to Miss Walbrook the success
of his first educational evening.

"She's very intelligent, very. You'd really be pleased with her,
Barbe. Her mind is so starved that it absorbs everything you say to
her, as a dry soil will drink up rain."

Regarding him with the mysterious Egyptian expression which had at
times suggested the reincarnation of some ancient spirit Barbara
maintained the stillness which had come upon her on the previous day.
"That must be very satisfactory to you, Rash."

He agreed the more enthusiastically because of believing her at one
with him in this endeavor. "You bet! The whole thing is going to work
out. She'll pick up our point of view as if she was born to it."

"And you're not afraid of her picking up anything else?"

"Anything else of what kind?"

"She might fall in love with you, mightn't she?"

"With me? Nonsense! No one would fall in love with me who----"

Her mysterious Egyptian smile came and went. "You can stop there,
Rash. It's no use being more uncomplimentary than you need to be. And
then, too, you might fall in love with her."

"Barbe!" He cried out, as if wounded. "You're really too absurd.
She's a good little thing, and she's had the devil's own luck----"

"They always do have. That was one thing I learnt in Bleary Street. It
was never a girl's own fault. It was always the devil's own luck."

"Well, isn't it, now, when you come to think of it? You can't take
everything away from people, and expect them to have the same
standards as you and me. Think of the mess that people of our sort
make of things, even with every advantage."

"We've our own temptations, of course."

"And they've got theirs--without our pull in the way of carrying them
off. You should hear Steptoe----"

"I don't want to hear Steptoe. I've heard hi