overlooked the chance that lay in Charley, and he was far too canny to blast his forlorn hope.  He had probably wondered what had changed the nature of Hortense’s caresses, and the adventure of the torn money could scarce have failed to suggest itself to the mind of a youth who, little as he had trodden the ways of the world, evidently possessed some lively instincts regarding the nature of women.  To batter Charley as he had battered Juno’s nephew, might result in winding the arms of Hortense around his own neck more tightly than ever.

Why Hortense should keep Charley “on” any longer, was what I could least fathom, but I trusted her to have excellent reasons for anything that she did.  “It’s sure to be quite simple, once you know it,” I told myself; and the near future proved me to be right.

Thus I laid most of my enigmas to rest; there was but one which now and then awakened still.  Were Hortense a raw girl of eighteen, I could easily grant that the “fire-eater” in John would be sure to move her.  But Hortense had travelled many miles away from the green forests of romance; her present fields were carpeted, not with grass and flowers, but with Oriental mats and rugs, and it was electric lights, not the moon and stars, that shone upon her highly seasoned nights.  No, torn money and all, it was not appropriate in a woman of her experience; and so I still found myself inquiring in the words of Beverly Rodgers, “But what can she want him for?”

The next time that I met Mrs. Gregory St. Michael it was on my way to join the party at the old church, which Mrs. Weguelin was going to show them.  The card-case was in her hand, and the sight of it prompted me to allude to Hortense Rieppe.

“I find her beauty growing upon me?” I declared.

Mrs. Gregory did not deny the beauty, although she spoke with reserve at first.  “It is to be said that she knows how to write a suitable note,” the lady also admitted.

She didn’t tell me what the note was about, naturally; but I could imagine with what joy in the exercise of her art Hortense had constructed that communication which must have accompanied the prompt return of the card-case.

Then Mrs. Gregory’s tongue became downright.  “Since you’re able to see so much of her, why don’t you tell her to marry that little steam-yacht gambler?  I’m sure he’s dying to, and he’s just the thing for her?”

“Ah,” I returned, “Love so seldom knows what’s just the thing for marriage.”

“Then your precocity theory falls,” declared Mrs. St. Michael.  And as she went away from me along the street, I watched her beautiful stately walk; for who could help watching a sight so good?

Charley, then, was no secret to John’s people.  Was John still a secret to Charley?  Could Hortense possibly have managed this?  I hoped for a chance to observe the two men with her during the visit of Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael and her party to the church.