Several of the New York papers carried lurid headlines and more or less sensational accounts of the accident to the child and the treatment administered by Dr. Earl, as well as a tribute to the heroism of the volunteer nurse. All of them contained a report of some character of these occurrences.

When Dr. Earl called at the home of his fiancÉe, according to appointment, to take her and her mother to luncheon the next day, he found Leonora in a sullen mood, and it did not take him long to discover that he was not in high favor at this particular hour.

He greeted her with a kiss, but hers in return was perfunctory. He was not compelled to wait long for an explanation, for she poured out her feelings without any questioning.

"Oh, Jack, dear, how could you mix up with that suffrage crowd! Don't you know that mamma is vice-president of the Anti-Woman Suffrage League? She is so annoyed! And that horrid Silvia Holland—why, Jack, she is a downright socialist. Don't you know she was arrested in England for trying to break into parliament with a lot of other suffragettes, and she was arrested here only last month for defying the police and taking sides with a lot of girls who refused to work in the factories where they were employed! Even when in school she was horrid. When they wouldn't let her make a suffrage speech on the school grounds one night she took the girls to a neighboring graveyard and spoke from a flat monument! And to think the papers have you mixed up with her, and our wedding soon to be announced! Oh, it's terrible!" and she buried her face in the sofa pillows.

Had this scene occurred with any one else, Jack felt certain he could not have restrained his laughter, for he could see Miss Holland delivering an exhortation to the schoolgirls from a tombstone in a cemetery by night. But he understood the prejudices of a certain element of New York society, and while the past twenty-four hours had led him, somewhat, to believe that this progressive democratic wave sweeping over the world had engulfed all New Yorkers, he now realized how sadly mistaken he had been.

With infinite tact he told her that his sister had taken their party to the ball—pointed out his own duty when the injured child had been brought in from the street, and how he had not even suggested that Miss Holland should assist him. He saw that the present was no time for a discussion of the merits of the case or a pronouncement of his own views, but he distinctly realized, with something of a jolt, it is true, that a wide gulf separated the Bourbon element of America's supposed democracy from the advancing column of her real and inspired democracy, and he wondered whether it were at all possible to tunnel under or bridge over this gulf. He lightly changed the subject.

"I have just discovered that I can get my old offices on East 53rd Street, as the year's lease expires the first of next month, and the agents heeded my letter asking them to wait for me. So I shall feel quite at home in the old quarters," he said.

She smiled at this, but was not quite ready to drop the former subject. "Jack, dear, did you take Miss Holland home at one o'clock in the morning?"

He laughed at her this time, as he bent to kiss her. "I really believe you are jealous, you little nymph. Of course I took her home. She could not stay there all night, and there was no one else to take her."

She looked very serious. "No, I don't know what jealousy is," she slowly and emphatically said, "but I don't want to know people who do the things that Miss Holland does, and I don't want you to know them."

"My dear child," he said, taking her hands in his and catching her eyes with his own steady glance. "I must know whoever is thrown into my path either in a professional or a social way. All people are intensely interesting to me, for we are, after all, but one great family of human beings, trying to carve out lives that are worth while, and this we can do better by getting the best there is from each other." He hesitated a moment, still looking steadily at her. She quivered slightly, but he was dimly conscious of the colossal character of the will she was summoning to her aid. Then very slowly, but with all the earnestness of his nature, he added, "You must get away from these views, for they are dwarfing and not becoming to you, and if you do not we shall be very unhappy. Miss Holland is a remarkable young woman. She is destined to fill a great place in our American social and political life. She is well worthy of your friendship."

She withdrew her hands, but still kept her eyes fixed on his. Her brow contracted and with emphasis she said: "Miss Holland has forfeited her place in our set by her conduct; why, Jack, you don't know how she is criticized by our friends or you would not suggest such a thing."

He arose with a shrug of his shoulders. Fortunately, Mrs. Kimball appeared at this moment and they motored to the Plaza for luncheon, which was a somewhat formal and unsatisfactory affair, in spite of all his efforts to make it otherwise. The young man could not but feel that Mrs. Kimball shared her daughter's views—was, in fact, their author—and that in the eyes of his future mother-in-law he had been guilty of a breach of etiquette far more serious than an infraction of the moral law. He left them with the understanding that he would accompany them to the theatre in the evening.