The Duchess of Breakwater was not sure how close Dan Blair’s thoughts were to marriage, but the boy from Montana was the easiest prey that had come across the beautiful and unscrupulous woman’s range. He had told her that he stayed on up in London to see a man from home, and when after four days he still lingered in town, she found his absence unbearable, and sent him a wire so worded that if he had a spark of interest in her he must immediately return to the Park. She had never been more lovely than when Dan found her waiting for him.

She had ordered tea in her sitting-room. She told him that he looked frightfully seedy, asked him what he had been doing and why he had stopped so long away, and Blair told her that old Ruggles, his father’s friend, had run over to see him with a lot of papers for Dan to read and sign and closed with a smile, telling her that he guessed she “didn’t know much about business.”

“I only know the horrid things of business—debts, and loans, and bills, and fussing.”

“Those things are not business,” Dan answered wisely; “they are just common or garden carelessness.”

She asked him why he had not brought Ruggles out to Osdene, and he told her he couldn’t have done a stroke of work with the old boy down here at the Park.

Stirring his tea, he appreciated the duchess. The agreeable picture she made impressed him mightily.

“Do you know,” he asked suddenly, “what you make me think of?”

And she responded softly: “No, dear.”

“A box of candy. This room with its stuffed walls, and you in it are good enough—”

“To eat?” she laughed aloud. “Oh, you perfectly killing creature, what an idea!”

And as he met her eyes with his clear ones, with a simplicity she could never hope to reach, he put his tea-cup down; and as he did so the duchess observed his strong hands, their vigor, well-kept and muscular, but not the dandified hands of the man who goes often to the manicure.

“If it hadn’t been for one thing,” the boy went on, “I would have thought of nothing else but you, every minute I’ve been away.”

“Mr. Ruggles?” suggested the duchess.

“No, the Gaiety girl, Letty Lane. You know I told you in the box that she was from my town.”

The young man, who had flown back to Osdene Park in answer to a telegram, began to take his companion into his confidence.

“I knew that girl,” Dan said, “when she wasn’t more than fourteen. She sold me soda-water over the drug store counter. I always thought she was bully, bright as a button and pretty as a peach. Once, I remember, I took six chocolate sodas in one day just to go in and see her. I had an awful time. I most died of that jag, and yet,” he said meditatively, “I don’t think I ever spoke three words to her, just said ‘sarsaparilla’ or ‘chocolate’ or whatever it might happen to be. Ever since that day, ever since that jag,” he said with feeling, “I couldn’t see a stick of chocolate and keep my head up! Well,” went on the boy, “Sarah Towney sang in our church for a missionary meeting, and I was there. I can remember the song she sang.” He spoke with unconscious ardor. He didn’t refer to the hymn, however, but went on with his narrative. “She disappeared from Blairtown. I never had a peep at her again until the other night. Gosh!” he said fervently, “when I saw her there on the stage, why, I felt as though cold water was running up and down my spine.”

The duchess, as a rule, was amused by his slang. It seemed vulgar to her now.

“Heavens,” she drawled, “you are really too dreadful!”

He didn’t seem to hear her.

“She’s turned out a perfect wonder, hasn’t she? A world-beater! Why, everybody tells me there isn’t another like her in her specialty. Of course I have heard of Letty Lane, but I haven’t been out to things since I went in mourning, and I’ve never run up against her.”

“Really,” drawled the duchess again, “now that you have ‘run up against her’ what are you going to do with her? Marry her?”

His honest stare was the greatest relief she had ever experienced. He repeated bluntly: “Marry her? Why the dickens should I?”

“You seem absorbed in her.”

He agreed with her. “I am. I think she’s great, don’t you?”

“Hardly.”

But the cold voice of the duchess did not chill him. “Simply great,” he continued, “and I’m sorry for her down to the ground. That is what is the matter. Didn’t you notice her when she came into the Carlton that night?”

“What of it, silly? I thought she looked as thin as a shad in that black dress, and the way Poniotowsky goes about with her proves what an ass he is.”

“Well, I hate him,” Blair simply stated; “I would wring his neck for twenty cents. But she’s very ill; that is what is the matter with her.”

“They all look like that off the stage,” the duchess assured indifferently. “They are nothing but footlight beauties: they look ghastly off the boards. I dare say that Letty Lane is ill, though; the pace she goes would kill anybody. Have some more tea?”

He held out his cup and agreed with her.

“She works too hard—this playing almost every night, singing and dancing twice at the matinÉes, I should think she would be dead.”

“Oh, I don’t mean her professional engagements,” murmured the duchess.

A revolt such as had stung him when they criticized her at the Carlton rose in him now.

“It is hard to believe,” he said, “when you hear her sing that dove song and that cradle song.”

But his companion’s laugh stopped his championship short.

“You dear boy, don’t be a silly, Dan. She doesn’t need your pity or your good opinion. She is perfectly satisfied. She has got a fortune in Poniotowsky, and she really is ‘a perfect terror,’ you know.”

Affected slightly by her cold dismissal of his subject, he paused for a moment. But his own point of view was too strong to be shaken by this woman’s light words.

“I suppose if she wasn’t from my town—” At his words the vision of Letty Lane with the coral strands on her dress, came before his eyes, and he said honestly: “But I do take an interest in her just the same, and she’s going to pieces, that’s clear. Something ought to be done.”

The Duchess of Breakwater was very much annoyed.

“Are you going to talk about her all the time?” she asked with sharp sweetness. “You are not very flattering, Dan.”

And he returned peacefully, “Why, I thought you might be able to help her in some way or another.”

“Me!” She laughed aloud. “Me help Letty Lane? Really—”

“Why, you might get her to sing out here,” he suggested. “That would sort of get hold of her; women know how to do those things.”

His preposterous simplicity overwhelmed her. She stirred her tea, and said, controlling herself, “Why, what on earth would you have me to say to Letty Lane?”

“Oh, just be nice to her,” he suggested. “Tell her to take care of herself and to brace up. Get some nice woman to—”

The duchess helped him. “To reform her?”

“Do her good,” the boy said gently.

“You’re too silly for words. If you were not such a hopeless child I would be furious with you. Why, my dear boy, she would laugh in your face and in mine.”

As the duchess left the tea-table she repeated: “Is this what you came up from London to talk to me about?”

And at the touch of her dress as she passed him—at the look she gave him from her eyes, Dan flushed and said honestly: “Why, I told you that she was the only thing that kept me from thinking about you all the time.”