“I see,” said Ogilvy, thoughtfully.  A few moments later, as he and Annan were leaving the house, he said: 

“It looks to me as though our friend, Jose, had taken too much for granted.”

“It looks like it,” nodded Annan, smiling unpleasantly.

“Too sure of conquest,” added Ogilvy.  “Got the frozen mitt, didn’t he?”

“And the Grand Cordon of the double cross.”

“And the hot end of the poker; yes?”

“Sure; and it’s still sizzling.”  Ogilvy cast a gleeful glance back at the house: 

“Fine little girl.  All white.  Yes?  No?”

“All white,” nodded Annan....  “And Neville isn’t that kind of a man, anyway.”

Ogilvy said:  “So you think so, too?”

“Oh, yes.  He’s crazy about her, and she isn’t taking Sundays out if it’s his day in....  Only, what’s the use?”

“No use....  I guess Kelly Neville has seen as many artists who’ve married their models as we have.  Besides, his people are frightful snobs.”

Annan, walking along briskly, swung his stick vigorously: 

“She’s a sweet little thing,” he said.

“I know it.  It’s going to be hard for her.  She can’t stand for a mutt—­and it’s the only sort that will marry her....  I don’t know—­she’s a healthy kind of girl—­but God help her if she ever really falls in love with one of our sort.”

“I think she’s done it,” said Annan.

“Kelly!”

“Doesn’t it look like it?”

“Oh, it will wear off without any harm to either of them.  That little girl is smart, all right; she’ll never waste an evening screaming for the moon.  And Kelly Neville is—­is Kelly Neville—­a dear fellow, so utterly absorbed in the career of a brilliant and intelligent young artist named Louis Neville, that if the entire earth blew up he’d begin a new canvas the week after....  Not that I think him cold-hearted—­no, not even selfish as that little bounder Allaire says—­but he’s a man who has never yet had time to spare.”

“They’re the most hopeless,” observed Annan—­“the men who haven’t time to spare.  Because it takes only a moment to say, ’Hello, old man!  How in hell are you?’ It takes only a moment to put yourself, mentally, in some less lucky man’s shoes; and be friendly and sorry and interested.”

“He’s a pretty decent sort,” murmured Ogilvy.  “Anyway, that Valerie child is safe enough in temporarily adoring Kelly Neville.”

* * * * *

The “Valerie child,” in a loose, rose-silk peignoir, cross-legged on her bed, was sewing industriously on her week’s mending.  Rita, in dishabille, lay across the foot of the bed nibbling bonbons and reading the evening paper.

They had dined in their living room, a chafing dish aiding.  Afterward Valerie went over her weekly accounts and had now taken up her regular mending; and there she sat, sewing away, and singing in her clear, young voice, the old madrigal: