might have ended his days in Sing Sing's
electric chair--but as it happened Mary's voice came upon the vibrating,
pregnant air, clear and cool and full of warranted acerbity.

"While all this talk of reputations is going on," said Mary, "what about
mine?"

Anthony Fry's tension snapped. Johnson Boller, it seemed, was of no mind
to relinquish his rare fury so easily, for he stood with his fists
clenched and trembled a little even now and his color was no lighter
than scarlet; but Anthony turned and bowed almost humbly.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Mary," he said bitterly.

"Miss Mary!" echoed Boller. "You know her, hey?"

"She told me to call her Mary," Anthony said stiffly.

"When? When you hired her for this job?" Johnson Boller persisted,
although quite weakly.

"When I discovered--not half an hour back--that she was--er--what she
is," Anthony said coldly. "And let that be an end to your comments,
please. You saw me meet this young woman for the first time, as you will
know when you recover your senses. You know for what purpose and under
what misapprehension I brought her to this apartment. Don't make a bad
matter worse by injecting your personal brand of asininity."

He turned his back on Johnson Boller and walked away.

Johnson Boller, however, turned his whole attention to Mary, perched on
the arm of a chair, distressed enough but self-contained, pretty as a
picture. And slowly reason climbed upon her throne again in Johnson
Boller's brain, possessed though it was by Beatrice, loveliest of wives.

He smiled suddenly, because Beatrice in far-off Montreal would never
know; he even grinned after a few seconds; and then, the enormity of the
joke on Anthony Fry overcoming him suddenly, Johnson Boller opened his
mouth and laughed--not a mere, decent expression of mirth, but a roar
which suggested a wild bull in acute agony.

A Niagara of sound left Johnson Boller and ended in a deep, happy
wheeze--and the torrent broke loose again and he hugged his fat sides
and rocked and roared again, until Wilkins, genuinely startled, entered
the living-room, and stopped, more genuinely startled, and regarded the
altered David with mouth wide open.

"God bless my soul!" Wilkins said frankly. "What----"

"Wilkins!" Anthony snapped.

"I--I beg pardon, sir!" the faithful one choked. "The young lady----"

"The young lady," said his master, and his voice had the edge of a razor
blade, "is--here by accident, Wilkins. She cam