her, clutching on the toga of the primitive male, to hear him, the ignorant, ridiculously claiming overlordship in a field which should have been supremely woman's.

"Go ahead," said Charles dryly. "Protect her all you want."

But Donald angrily told him not to be an ass. It was a delicate matter—for him—he declared; besides, Mary wouldn't listen to him. He wasn't advanced.

"But you're another matter. You've got some influence with Mary, and—"

"Stop right there! I've got more influence with the Weather Department than I have with Mary Wing."

Glowering at him over the foot of the bed, the engineer demanded reasons for his strange unpractical behavior. Charles offered a few simple selections from his complex feelings.

"First, your cousin's personal behavior is none of my business. Second, I'd have no respect for her if she gave up her principles because you asked me to ask her to. Third, I despise a person who's scared out of his wits by fear of what the neighbors'll think."

Donald appeared momentarily speechless. Perceiving this, the author fitted a cigarette into a holder Mary Wing had given him on his birthday, and resumed his few remarks:—

"Of course your mistake is in supposing that Miss Mary is acting through ignorance. She's acting from principle, as I say, and doing a plucky thing, too. For she doesn't think that because a poor silly girl has once made a mistake, the thing to do—"

But Manford recovered his voice with a bound.

"Mistake! I'm surprised at you, Garrott! I did you the justice to think that all this advanced rot of yours was just talk. Come!—say right out you think it's a mighty plucky thing for a girl to go off and live with a married man!"

Charles smiled, and then hesitated. It was odd how instantly Donald Manford modernized him, killing all reactions: But what was the use of arguing with a fellow who honestly believed that a woman had but one "virtue," who spoke of her frankly as "the sex," allowed her no honor but "woman's honor," had but one question to ask about her "character"? This youth had not budged since the fifth century.

"The only way to punish this is by the disgrace of it, I tell you!" he was arguing. "There's no punishment at all when you make a heroine 

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