About three o'clock of the same day a smart electric coupe whirled up Lake Shore Drive under a rattling fusillade of sleet from over the lake. At the entrance of the grounds of the Leslie mansion it curved around and shot in under the porte cochere.

A footman in the quiet dark green and black of the Leslie livery sprang out to open the coupe door, while the footman with the coupe, whose livery was not so quiet, swung down to hand out the occupants. Before the servant could offer his services, Dolores Gantry darted out past him and in through the welcome doorway of the side entrance. Her mother followed with stately leisure, regardless of a wind-flung dash of sleet on her sealskins.

Having been relieved of their furs, the callers were shown to the drawing-room. As the footman glided away to inform his mistress of their arrival, Dolores danced across to the door of the rear drawing-room and called in a clear, full-throated, contralto voice: "Ho, Vievie! Vievie! You in here? Hurry up! There's something I do so want to tell you."

Mrs. Gantry paused in the act of seating herself. "Dolores! Why must you shriek out like a magpie? Will you never forget you're a tomboy?"

"I'm not, mamma. I'm simply acting as if I were one. You forget I'm a full-blown debutante. Vievie has already promised me a ball."

"Behave yourself, if you wish to attend it."

Dolores jumped to a chair and sank into it with an air of elegant languor. "Yes, mamma. This—ah—driving in moist weather is so fatiguing, don't you find it?"

Mrs. Gantry disposed herself upon the comfortable seat that she had selected, and raised her gold lorgnette. "Do not forget that the ball Genevieve has so generously promised you is to be honored by the presence—"

"Of a real live earl and a real hero, with Laffie Ashton thrown in for good—I mean, bad—measure!" cut in Dolores with enthusiasm. "You know, I asked Vievie to 'put him on her list, else he never may be kissed!'"

Again Mrs. Gantry raised her lorgnette to transfix her daughter with her cold stare. "You asked her to invite Lafayette Ashton? And you know his reputation!"

"Of course. But you mustn't ask for the details, mamma," reproved the girl. "It's best that you should not become aware of such things, my dear. Only, you know, 'boys will be boys,' and we must not lose sight of the fact that poor dear Laffie will be worth twenty millions some day—if his papa doesn't make a will. Besides, he dances divinely. Of course Earl Jimmy's mustache is simply too cute for anything, but, alas! unless Vievie clings to her heroic Tommy—"

"Tommyrot!" sniffed Mrs. Gantry. "The presumption of that low fellow!
To think of his following her to America!"

"You should have forewarned the authorities at Ellis Island, and had him excluded as dangerous—to your plans."

"No more of this frivolity! I've confided to you that that man is dangerous to Genevieve's happiness. I'll not permit it. What a fortunate chance that the earl came with him! I shall see to it that Genevieve becomes a countess."

Dolores pulled a mock-tragic face. "Oh, mamma," she implored, "why don't you root for me, instead? I'm sure a coronet would fit me to perfection, and his mustache is so cute!"

To judge by Mrs. Gantry's expression, it was fortunate for her daughter that Genevieve came in upon them. Dolores divined this last from the sudden mellowing of her mother's face. She whirled up out of her chair and around, with a cry of joyous escape: "Oh, Vievie! You're just in time to save me!"

"From what, dear?" asked Genevieve, smilingly permitting herself to be crumpled in an impetuous embrace.

"Mamma was just going to run the steam-roller over me, simply because I said Jimmy's mustache is cute. It is cute, isn't it?"

"'Jimmy'?" inquired Genevieve, moving to a chair beside Mrs. Gantry.

"His honorable earlship, then—since mamma is with us."

"You may leave the room," said her mother.

"I may," repeated the girl. She pirouetted up the room and stopped to look at a painting of a desolate tropical coast.

"It's such a dreadful day out, Aunt Amice," said Genevieve. "And you can't be rested from the trip."

"Quite true, my dear," agreed Mrs. Gantry. "But I had to see you—to talk matters over with you. I did not wish to break in on your enjoyment of those delightful English house parties; and crossing over, you know, I was too wretchedly ill to think of anything. Can I never get accustomed to the sea!"

"It's so unfortunate," condoled Genevieve. "I believe I'm a born sailor."

"You proved it, starting off with that globe-trotting Lady Bayrose."

"Poor Lady Bayrose! To think that she—" The girl pressed her hands to her eyes. "The way that frightful breaker whirled the boat loose and over and over!—and the water swarming with sharks!"

"Do not think of it, my dear! Really, you must not think of it!" urged Mrs. Gantry. "Be thankful it happened before the sailors had time to put you in the same boat. Better still, my dear, do not permit yourself to think of it at all. Put all that dreadful experience out of your mind."

"But you do not understand, Aunt Amice. I fear you never will. Except for that—for poor Lady Bayrose—I've told you, I do not wish to forget it."

"My dear!" protested Mrs. Gantry, "cannot you realize how very improper—? That man! What if he should talk?"

"Is there anything to be concealed?" asked Genevieve, with quiet dignity.

"You know how people misconstrue things," insisted her aunt. "That newspaper notoriety was quite sufficiently—It's most fortunate that Lord Avondale is not affected. I must admit, his attitude towards that man puzzles me."

"I can understand it very well," replied Genevieve, firmly.

"You both insist that the fellow is—is not absolutely unspeakable! I should never have thought it of you, Genevieve, nor of such a thorough gentleman as Lord Avondale—gentleman in our sense of the term,—refined, cultured, and clean. Were he one of the gentry who have reasons for leaving England,—who go West and consort with ruffians—remittance men—But no. Lady Chetwynd assured me he has been presented at Court, and you know the strictness of Queen Mary."

"You admit that Lord Avondale is, shall I say—perfect. Yet—"

"He is irreproachable, my dear, except as regards his extraordinary insistence upon an intimate friendship with that man."

"That is what confirms my good opinion of him, Aunt Amice."

"That!"

"It proves he is himself manly and sincere."

Mrs. Gantry raised a plump hand, palm outward. "Between the two of you—"

"We know Mr. Blake—the real man. You do not."

"I never shall. I will not receive him—never. He is impossible!"

"What! never?—the man who saved me from starvation, fever, wild beasts, from all the horrors of that savage coast?—the intimate friend of the Earl of Avondale?"

"Does he paint, Vievie?" called Dolores. "Is this a picture of your
Crusoe coast?"

"No, dear. I bought that in New York. But it is very like the place where Tom—"

"'Tom'!" reproached Mrs. Gantry. She looked around at her daughter.
"Dolores, I presumed you left us when I ordered you."

"Oh, no, not 'ordered,' mamma. You said 'may,' not 'must.'"

"Leave the room!"

The girl sauntered down towards the arched opening into the rear drawing-room. As she passed the others, she paused to pat her cousin's soft brown hair.

"I do believe the sun has burnt it a shade lighter, Vievie," she remarked. "What fun it must have been! When are you going to show me that leopard-skin gown?"

"Leave the room this instant!" commanded Mrs. Gantry.

Dolores crossed her hands on her bosom and crept out with an air of martyred innocence. Her mother turned to Genevieve for sympathy. "That girl! I don't know what ever I shall do with her—absolutely irrepressible! These titled Englishmen are so particular—she is your cousin."

Genevieve colored slightly. "You should know Lord Avondale better. If he is at all interested—"

"He is, most decidedly. He dined with us last evening. Laffie Ashton called; so I succeeded in getting the earl away from Dolores. We had a most satisfying little tete-a-tete. I led him into explaining everything."

"Everything?" queried Genevieve.

"Yes, everything, my dear. His aloofness since you reached Aden has been due merely to his high sense of honor,—to an absurd but chivalrous agreement with that fellow to not press his suit until after your arrival home. At Aden he had given the man his word—"

"At Aden?" interrupted Genevieve. "How could that be, when Tom left the ship at Port Mozambique?"

"He didn't. It seems that the fellow was aboard all the time, hiding in the steerage or stoke-hole, or somewhere—no doubt to spy on you and Lord Avondale."

Genevieve averted her head and murmured in a half whisper: "He was aboard all that time, and never came up for a breath of air all those smothering days! I remember Lord James speaking of how hot and vile it was down in the forecastle. This explains why he went forward so much!"

"It explains why he did not book passage with you from Aden—why he did not hasten to you at Lady Chetwynd's—all because of his chivalrous but mistaken sense of loyalty to that low fellow."

"If you please, Aunt Amice," said Genevieve, in a tone as incisive as it was quiet, "you will remember that I esteem Mr. Blake."

Mrs. Gantry stared over her half-raised lorgnette. She had never before known her niece to be other than the very pattern of docility.

"Well!" she remarked, and, after a little pause; "Fortunately, that absurd agreement is now at an end. The earl intimated that he would call on you this afternoon. I am sure, my dear—"

Of what the lady was sure was left to conjecture. The footman appeared in the hall entrance and announced: "Mr. Brice-Ashton."

Ashton came in, effusive and eager. "My dear Miss Genevieve! I—ah, Mrs. Gantry! Didn't expect to meet you here, such a day as this. Most unexpected—ah—pleasure! N'est-ce pas?—No, no! my dear Miss Leslie; keep your seat!"

Genevieve had seemed about to rise, but he quite deftly drew a chair around and sat down close before her. "I simply couldn't wait any longer. I felt I must call to congratulate you over that marvellous escape. It must have been terrible—terrible!"

Genevieve replied with perceptible coldness: "Thank you, Mr. Ashton. I had not expected a call from you."

"'Mr.' Ashton!" he echoed. "Has it come to that?—when we used to make mudpies together! Dolores said that you—"

"Not so fast, Laffie!" called the girl, as she came dancing into the room in her most animated manner. "Don't forget I'm Miss Gantry now."

Ashton continued to address Genevieve, without turning: "I came all the way down from Michamac just to congratulate you—left my bridge!"

"You're too sudden with your congratulations, Laffie," mocked Dolores.
"Genevieve hasn't yet decided whether it's to be the hero or the earl."

"Dolores," admonished her mother. "I told you to leave the room."

"Yes, and forgot to tell me to stay out. It's no use now, is it? Unless you wish me to drag out Laffie for a little tete-a-tete in the conservatory."

"Sit down, dear," said Genevieve.

Mrs. Gantry turned to Ashton with a sudden unbending from hauteur. "My dear Lafayette, I observed your manner yesterday towards that—towards Mr. Blake. Am I right in surmising that you know something with regard to his past?"

"About Blake?" replied Ashton, his usually wide and ardent eyes shifting their glance uneasily from his questioner to Genevieve and towards the outer door.

"About my friend Mr. Blake," said Genevieve.

"You call him a friend?—a fellow like that!" Ashton rashly exclaimed.

"He has proved himself a disinterested friend,—which I cannot say of all with whom I am acquainted."

"Oh, of course, if you feel that way."

"My other friends will remember that he saved my life."

"If only he had been a gentleman!" sighed Mrs. Gantry.

"Yes, Vievie," added Dolores. "Next time any one goes to save you, shoo him off unless he first offers his card."

"Mr. Blake is what many a seeming gentleman is not," said Genevieve, her levelled glance fixed upon Ashton. "Tom Blake is a man, a strong, courageous man!"

"We quite agree with you," ventured Ashton. "He is a man of the type one so frequently sees among firemen and the police."

Mrs. Gantry intervened with quick tact: "Mr. Blake is quite an eminent civil engineer, we understand. As a fellow engineer, you have met him, I dare say—have had dealings with him."

"I?—with him? No—that is—" Ashton stammered and shifted about uneasily under Genevieve's level gaze. "It was only when I was acting as Mr. Leslie's secretary. Blake handed me the bridge plans that he afterwards claimed were lost. I tell you, I had nothing to do with them—nothing! I merely received them from him. That was all. I went away the very next day—resigned my position. I don't know what became of his plans,—nothing whatever! I tell you, the Michamac Bridge—"

"Why, Lame!" giggled Dolores. "What makes you squirm so? You're twitching all over. I thought you'd had enough of the simple life at Michamac to recover from the effects of that corner in oats. You haven't started another corner already, have you?"

"No, I have—I mean, yes—just a few cocktails at the club—yes, that's it. So bitter cold, this sleet! You'll understand, Mrs. Gantry—perhaps one too much. Haven't had any since I went back to the bridge last time."

"Then up at Michamac you take it straight?" asked Dolores.

Ashton forced a nervous laugh. "Keep it up, Dodie! You'll make a wit yet." He bent towards Genevieve. "You'll pardon me, won't you, Genevieve?"

The girl raised her fine brows ever so slightly. "'Miss Leslie,' if you please."

"Of course—of course! Just another slip—that last cocktail and the sleet. Wet cold always sends it to my head. That about Blake, too—I oughtn't to 've spoken of it after you said he was your friend. It's, of course, your father's affair."

"Then you need say no more about it," said Genevieve with ironical graciousness. He shifted about in his chair, and she caught him deftly. "Must you be going?—really! Good-day."

He rose uncertainly to his feet, his handsome face flushed, and his full red lower lip twitching.

"I—I had not intended—" he began.

"Good-day!" said Mrs. Gantry with significant emphasis.

"So sorry you must rush off so soon, Laffie," mocked Dolores.

Social training has its value. Ashton pulled himself together, bowed gracefully, and started up the room with easy assurance.

As he neared the doorway, the footman appeared and announced with unction: "The Right Honorable, the Earl of Avondale."

Ashton stopped short, and when the Englishman entered, met him with an effusive greeting: "Mon Dieu! Such a fortunate chance, your lordship! So glad to meet you again,—and here, of all places! Don't forget to look me up at my clubs."

"Hearts are trumps, Laffie—not clubs," called Dolores, as Lord James passed him by with a vague nod.