hospitality, and, the young man being a friend of Hammond Chester, he had felt bound to invite him to Riverside Drive--with misgivings which were now, he felt, completely justified.

"Ann ought to marry," said Mrs. Pett. "She gets her own way too much now. However, it is entirely her own affair, and there is nothing that we can do." She rose. "I only hope she will be sensible."

She went out, leaving Mr. Pett gloomier than she had found him. He hated the idea of Ann marrying Lord Wisbeach, who, even if he had had no faults at all, would be objectionable in that he would probably take her to live three thousand miles away in his own country. The thought of losing Ann oppressed Mr. Pett sorely.

Ann, meanwhile, had made her way down the passage to the gymnasium which Mr. Pett, in the interests of his health, had caused to be constructed in a large room at the end of the house--a room designed by the original owner, who had had artistic leanings, for a studio. The _tap-tap-tap_ of the leather bag had ceased, but voices from within told her that Jerry Mitchell, Mr. Pett's private physical instructor, was still there. She wondered who was his companion, and found on opening the door that it was Ogden. The boy was leaning against the wall and regarding Jerry with a dull and supercilious gaze which the latter was plainly finding it hard to bear.

"Yes, sir!" Ogden was saying, as Ann entered. "I heard Biggs asking her to come for a joyride."
"I bet she turned him down," said Jerry Mitchell sullenly.
"I bet she didn't. Why should she? Biggs is an awful good-looking fellow."
"What are you talking about, Ogden?" said Ann.

"I was telling him that Biggs asked Celestine to go for a ride in the car with him."
"I'll knock his block off," muttered the incensed Jerry.

Ogden laughed derisively.
"Yes, you will! Mother would fire you if you touched him. She wouldn't stand for having her chauffeur beaten up."

Jerry Mitchell turned an appealing face to Ann. Ogden's revelations and especially his eulogy of Biggs' personal appearance had tormented him. He knew that, in his wooing of Mrs. Pett's maid, Celestine, he was handicapped by his looks, concerning which he had no illusions. No Adonis to begin with, he had been so edited and re-edited during a long and prosperous ring career by the gloved fists of a hundred foes that in affairs of the heart he was obliged to rely exclusively on moral worth and charm of 

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