“What did you do to him?”

“Me?  I cooed at him like a dove of peace.

  “But he was very stiff and proud
       He said, ‘You needn’t talk so loud,’”

chanted Miss Esme mellifluously.

“He didn’t!”

“Well, if he didn’t, he meant it.  He wanted to know what the big, big D-e-v, dev, I was doing there, anyway.”

“Norrie Elliot!  Tell me the truth.”

“Very well,” said Miss Elliot, aggrieved. “You report the conversation, then, since you won’t accept my version.”

“If you would give me a start—­”

“Just what he wouldn’t do for me,” interrupted Esme.  “I went in there to explain something and he pointed the finger of scorn at me and accused me of frequenting low and disreputable localities.”

“Norrie!”

“Well,” replied the girl brazenly, “he said he’d seen me about the Rookeries district; and if that isn’t a low—­”

“Had he?”

“Nothing more probable, though I didn’t happen to see him there.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Precisely what he wanted to know.  He said it rather as if he owned the place.  So I explained in words of one syllable that I went there to pick edelweiss from the fire escapes.  Jinny, dear, you don’t know how hard it is to crowd ‘edelweiss’ into one syllable until you’ve tried.  It splutters.”

“So do you,” said the indignant Mrs. Willard.  “You do worse; you gibber.  If you weren’t just the prettiest thing that Heaven ever made, some one would have slain you long ago for your sins.”

“Pretty, yourself,” retorted Esme.  “My real charm lies in my rigid adherence to the spirit of truth.  Your young friend Mr. Surtaine scorned my floral jest.  He indicated that I ought not to be about the tenements.  He said there was a great deal of sickness there.  That was why I was there, I explained politely.  Then he said that the sickness might be contagious, and he muttered something about an epidemic and then looked as if he wished he hadn’t.”

“I’ve heard some talk of sickness in the Rookeries.  Ought you to be going there?” asked the other anxiously.

“Mr. Surtaine thinks not.  Quite severely.  And in elderly tones.  Naturally I asked him what kind of an epidemic it was.  He said he didn’t know, but he was sure the place was dangerous, and he was surprised that Uncle Guardy hadn’t warned me.  Uncle Guardy had, but I don’t do everything I’m warned about.  So then I asked young Mr. Editor why, as he knew there was a dangerous epidemic about, he should warn little me privately instead of warning the big public, publicly.”

“Meddlesome child!  Can you never learn to keep your hands off?”

“I was spurring him to his editorial duties.

  “But he was very proud and stiff ... 
   He said that he would tell me, if—­”

lilted Miss Esme, rising to do a pas seul upon the Willards’ priceless Anatolian rug.