“Because!” said Mary Vertrees, replying to Roscoe’s monosyllable.  “And also because we’re next-door neighbors at table, and it’s dull times ahead for both of us if we don’t get along.”

Roscoe was a literal young man, all stocks and bonds, and he had been brought up to believe that when a man married he “married and settled down.”  It was “all right,” he felt, for a man as old as his father to pay florid compliments to as pretty a girl as this Miss Vertrees, but for himself—­“a young married man”—­it wouldn’t do; and it wouldn’t even be quite moral.  He knew that young married people might have friendships, like his wife’s for Lamhorn; but Sibyl and Lamhorn never “flirted”—­they were always very matter-of-fact with each other.  Roscoe would have been troubled if Sibyl had ever told Lamhorn she hoped he was susceptible.

“Yes—­we’re neighbors,” he said, awkwardly.

“Next-door neighbors in houses, too,” she added.

“No, not exactly.  I live across the street.”

“Why, no!” she exclaimed, and seemed startled.  “Your mother told me this afternoon that you lived at home.”

“Yes, of course I live at home.  I built that new house across the street.”

“But you—­” she paused, confused, and then slowly a deep color came into her cheek.  “But I understood—­”

“No,” he said; “my wife and I lived with the old folks the first year, but that’s all.  Edith and Jim live with them, of course.”

“I—­I see,” she said, the deep color still deepening as she turned from him and saw, written upon a card before the gentleman at her left the name, “Mr. James Sheridan, Jr.”  And from that moment Roscoe had little enough cause for wondering what he ought to reply to her disturbing coquetries.

Mr. James Sheridan had been anxiously waiting for the dazzling visitor to “get through with old Roscoe,” as he thought of it, and give a bachelor a chance.  “Old Roscoe” was the younger, but he had always been the steady wheel-horse of the family.  Jim was “steady” enough, but was considered livelier than Roscoe, which in truth is not saying much for Jim’s liveliness.  As their father habitually boasted, both brothers were “capable, hard-working young business men,” and the principal difference between them was merely that which resulted from Jim’s being still a bachelor.  Physically they were of the same type:  dark of eyes and of hair, fresh-colored and thick-set, and though Roscoe was several inches taller than Jim, neither was of the height, breadth, or depth of the father.  Both wore young business men’s mustaches, and either could have sat for the tailor-shop lithographs of young business men wearing “rich suitings in dark mixtures.”

Jim, approving warmly of his neighbor’s profile, perceived her access of color, which increased his approbation.  “What’s that old Roscoe saying to you, Miss Vertrees?” he asked.  “These young married men are mighty forward nowadays, but you mustn’t let ’em make you blush.”