follows, forces his way through the portals, engages the villain, and vanquishes him.  Leila becomes a Bride.  We behold her, at the end, mistress of one of those magnificent stone mansions with grilled vestibules and negro butlers into whose sacred precincts we are occasionally, in the movies, somewhat breathlessly ushered—­a long way from Hawtrey’s restaurant and a hall-bedroom.  A long way, too, from the Bagatelle and Fillmore Street—­but to Lise a way not impossible, nor even improbable.

This work of art, conveying the moral that virtue is an economic asset, made a great impression on Lise.  Good Old Testament doctrine, set forth in the Book of Job itself.  And Leila, pictured as holding out for a higher price and getting it, encouraged Lise to hold out also.  Mr. Wiley, in whose company she had seen this play, and whose likeness filled the plush and silver-plated frame on her bureau, remained ironically ignorant of the fact that he had paid out his money to make definite an ambition, an ideal hitherto nebulous in the mind of the lady whom he adored.  Nor did Lise enlighten him, being gifted with a certain inscrutableness.  As a matter of fact it had never been her intention to accept him, but now that she was able concretely to visualize her Lochinvar of the future, Mr. Whey’s lack of qualifications became the more apparent.  In the first place, he had been born in Lowell and had never been west of Worcester; in the second, his salary was sixteen dollars a week:  it is true she had once fancied the Scottish terrier style of hair-cut abruptly ending in the rounded line of the shaven neck, but Lochinvar had been close-cropped.  Mr. Wiley, close-cropped, would have resembled a convict.

Mr. Wiley was in love, there could be no doubt about that, and if he had not always meant marriage, he meant it now, having reached a state where no folly seems preposterous.  The manner of their meeting had had just the adventurous and romantic touch that Lise liked, one of her favourite amusements in the intervals between “steadies” being to walk up and down Faber Street of an evening after supper, arm in arm with two or three other young ladies, all chewing gum, wheeling into store windows and wheeling out again, pretending the utmost indifference to melting glances cast in their direction.  An exciting sport, though incomprehensible to masculine intelligence.  It was a principle with Lise to pay no attention to any young man who was not “presented,” those venturing to approach her with the ready formula “Haven’t we met before?” being instantly congealed.  She was strict as to etiquette.  But Mr. Wiley, it seemed, could claim acquaintance with Miss Schuler, one of the ladies to whose arm Lise’s was linked, and he had the further advantage of appearing in a large and seductive touring car, painted green, with an eagle poised above the hood and its name, Wizard, in a handwriting rounded and bold, written in nickel across the radiator.  He greeted Miss Schuler effusively, but his eye was