Mrs. Gatewood thoughtfully--very thoughtfully, for already every atom and fiber of her femininity was aroused in behalf of these two estranged young people whom Providence certainly had not meant to put asunder.

CHAPTER XII

"Nothing," said Gatewood firmly, "can make me believe that Kerns ought not to marry somebody; and I'm never going to let up on him until he does. I'll bet I could fix him for life if I called in the Tracer to help me. Isn't it extraordinary how Kerns has kept out of it all these years?"

The attractive girl beside him turned her face once more so that her clear, sweet eyes were directly in line with his.

"It _is_ extraordinary," she said seriously. "I think you ought to drop in at the club some day when you can corner him and bully him."

"I don't want to go to the club," said the infatuated man.

"Why, dear?"

He looked straight at her and she flushed prettily, while a tint of color touched his own face. Which was very nice of him. So she didn't say what she was going to say--that it would be perhaps better for them both if he practiced on her an artistic absence now and then. Younger in years, she was more mature than he. She knew. But she was too much in love with him to salt their ambrosia with common sense or suggest economy in their use of the nectar bottle.

However, the gods attend to that, and she knew they would, and she let them. So one balmy evening late in May, when the new moon's ghost floated through the upper haze, and the golden Diana above Manhattan turned flame color, and the electric lights began to glimmer along Fifth Avenue, and the first faint scent of the young summer freshened the foliage in square and park, Kerns, stopping at the club for a moment, found Gatewood seated at the same window they both were wont to haunt in earlier and more flippant days.

"Are you dining here?" inquired Kerns, pushing the electric button with enthusiasm. "Well, that's the first glimmer of common sense you've betrayed since you've been married!"

"Dining _here_!" repeated Gatewood. "I should hope not! I am just going home--"

"He's thoroughly cowed," commented Kerns; "every married man you meet at the club is just going home." But he continued to push the button, nevertheless.

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