“I can,” said Miss Esme Elliot confidently.

The heiress to the Pierce millions lifted her woe-begone face.  “You?” she cried incredulously.  “How?”

“I’ve got a pull,” said Esme, dimpling.

A light broke in upon her suppliant.  “Of course!  Hal Surtaine!  But father has been to see him and he won’t promise a thing.  I don’t see what he’s got against me.”

“Don’t worry, dear.  Perhaps your father doesn’t understand how to go about it.”

“No,” said the other thoughtfully.  “Father would try to bully and threaten.  He tried to bully me!” Miss Pierce stamped a well-shod foot in memory of her manifold wrongs.  Then feminine curiosity interposed a check.  “Esme!  Are you engaged to Hal Surtaine?”

“No, indeed!” The girl’s laughter rang silvery and true.

“Are you going to be?”

“I’m not going to be engaged to anybody.  Not for a long time, anyway.  Life is too good as it is.”

“Is he in love with you?” persisted Kathleen.

Esme lifted up a very clear and sweet mezzo-soprano in a mocking lilt of song:—­

  “How should my heart know
   What love may be?”

The visitor regarded her admiringly.  “Of course he is.  What man wouldn’t be!  And you’ve seen a lot of him lately, haven’t you?”

“I’m helping him run his paper—­with good advice.”

“Oh-h-h!” Miss Pierce’s soft mouth and big eyes formed three circles.  “And you’re going to advise him—­”

“I’m going to advise him ver-ree earnestly not to say a word about you in the paper, if you’ll promise never, never to do it again.”

The other clasped her in a bear-hug.  “You duck!  I’ll just crawl through the streets after this.  You watch me!  The police will have to call time on me to make sure I’m not obstructing the traffic.  But, Esme—­”

“Well?”

Kathleen caught her hand and snuggled it up to her childishly.  “How often do you see Hal Surtaine?”

“You ought to know.  There’s something going on every evening now.  And he goes everywhere.”

“Yes:  but outside of that?”

Esme laughed.  “How hard you’re working to make a romance that isn’t there.  I go to his office once in a while, just to see the wheels go ’round.”

“And are you going to the office now?”

“No,” said Esme, after consideration.  “Hal Surtaine is coming here.  This evening.”

“You have an appointment with him?”

“Not yet.  I’ll telephone him.”

“Father telephoned him, but he wouldn’t come to see father.  So father had to go to see him.”

“Mahomet!  Well, I’m the mountain in this case.  Go in peace, my child.”  Esme patted the other’s head with an absurd and delightful affectation of maternalism.  “And look in the ‘Clarion’ to-morrow with a clear assurance.  You shan’t find your name there—­unless in the Social Doings column.  Good-bye, dear.”