mewhat indeterminate
connection. Esme found her new acquaintance interesting both for himself
and for his career. Her set in general considered the ripening
friendship merely "another of Esme's flirtations," and variously
prophesied the denouement. To the girl's own mind it was not a
flirtation at all. She was (she assured herself) genuinely absorbed in
the development of a new mission in which she aspired to be influential.
That she already exercised a strong sway of personality over Hal
Surtaine, she realized. Indeed, in the superb confidence of her charm,
she would have been astonished had it been otherwise. Just where her
interest in the newly adventured professional field ended, and in
Harrington Surtaine, the man, began, she would have been puzzled to say.
Kathleen Pierce had bluntly questioned her on the subject.

"Yes, of course I like him," said Esme frankly. "He's interesting and
he's a gentleman, and he has a certain force about him, and he's"--she
paused, groping for a characterization--"he's unexpected."

"What gets me," said Kathleen, in her easy slang, "is that he never
pulls any knighthood-in-flower stuff, yet you somehow feel it's there.
Know what I mean? There's a scrapper behind that nice-boy smile."

"He hasn't scrapped with me, yet, Kathie," smiled the beauty.

"Don't let him," advised the other. "It mightn't be safe. Still, I
suppose you understand him by now, down to the ground."

"Indeed I do not. Didn't I tell you he was unexpected? He has an
uncomfortable trick," complained Miss Elliot, "just when everything is
smooth and lovely, of suddenly leveling those gray-blue eyes of his at
you, like two pistols. 'Throw up your hands and tell me what you really
mean!' One doesn't always want to tell what one really means."

"Bet you have to with him, sooner or later," returned her friend.

This conversation took place at the Vanes' _al fresco_ tea, to which Hal
came for a few minutes, late in the afternoon of his father's visit with
McQuiggan, mainly in the hope of seeing Esme Elliot. Within five minutes
after his arrival, Worthington society was frowning, or smiling,
according as it was masculine or feminine, at their backs, as they
strolled away toward the garden. Miss Esme was feeling a bit petulant,
perhaps because of Kathie Pierce's final taunt.

"I think you aren't living up to our partnership," she accused.

"Is it a partnership, where one party is absolute slave to the other's
slightest