“It’s all right.”  This was Hortense.  Her slow, rich murmur was as deliberate as always.

“Mr. Bohm knew it would be,” said Kitty.  “He said it wouldn’t take five minutes’ talk from Charley to get a contract worth double what they were going to accept.”

After this, nothing came to me for several minutes, save the odor of the cigarettes.

Of course there was now but one proper course for me, namely, to utter a discreet cough, and thus warn them that some one was within earshot.  But I didn’t!  I couldn’t!  Strength failed, curiosity won, my baser nature triumphed here, and I deliberately remained lying quiet and hidden.  It was the act of no gentleman, you will say.  Well, it was; and I must simply confess to it, hoping that I am not the only gentleman in the world who has, on occasion, fallen beneath himself.

“Hortense Rieppe,” began Kitty, “what do you intend to say to my brother after what he has done about those phosphates?”

“He is always so kind,” murmured Hortense.

“Well, you know what it means.”

“Means?”

“If you persist in this folly, you’ll drop out.”

Hortense chose another line of speculation.  “I wonder why your brother is so sure of me?”

“Charley is a set man.  And I’ve never seen him so set on anything as on you, Hortense Rieppe.”

“He is always so kind,” murmured Hortense again.

“He’s a man you’ll always know just where to find,” declared Kitty.  “Charley is safe.  He’ll never take you by surprise, never fly out, never do what other people don’t do, never make any one stare at him by the way he looks, or the way he acts, or anything he says, or—­or—­why, how you can hesitate between those two men after that ridiculous, childish, conspicuous, unusual scene on the bridge—­”

“Unusual.  Yes,” said Hortense.

Kitty’s eloquence and voice mounted together.  “I should think it was unusual!  Tearing people’s money up, and making a rude, awkward fuss that everybody had to smooth over as hard as they could!  Why, even Mr. Rodgers says that sort of thing isn’t done, and you’re always saying he knows.”

“No,” said Hortense.  “It isn’t done.”

“Well, I’ve never seen anything approaching such behavior in our set.  And he was ready to go further.  Nobody knows where it might have gone to, if Charley’s perfect coolness hadn’t rebuked him and brought him to his senses.  There’s where it is, that’s what I mean, Hortense, by saying you could always feel safe with Charley.”

Hortense put in a languid word.  “I think I should always feel safe with
Mr. Mayrant.”