of the woman."

"There'll be enough to punish, don't fret, without Mary Wing's taking a hand."

"Now look here, Charlie," said Donald, encouraged. "Just look at the matter in a sensible way. You can feel sorry for her and all that. But it isn't right, by George, it isn't decent and moral, to stand up and practically say you admire a notorious bad woman! Just think of the effect on other women! They'll argue, 'Well, if that's the way people feel about it, there's no use being good any more.' And think, Charlie!—what'll become of Society if all the girls get to skipping off and living with married men!"

Charles laughed and rose. "Of course I'd not dream of speaking to Miss Mary about this."

The young engineer exploded. But presently he gave it up.

"Then I'll have to speak to her myself," he declared, and looked as if he expected the hazardous audacity of such an enterprise to touch his friend's heart, even then. "And you remember this," he added, angrily, "when Mary's friends are all dropping her!"

"Nobody who drops her for this was ever her friend."

"More New Thought! And what about Mysinger? Suppose your idea is that this plucky business will boost Mary's standing in the schools like the devil?"

"My dear fellow, you're seeing things! You never heard of politics, I suppose? Nothing can shake us in the schools. 'Cause why? We own the Board by two votes."

Donald regarded him with the strongest disapproval. "Do you know you make me sick?"

"By the way," said Charles, pleasantly, "didn't I see you go by here with Miss Flower the other day? Where did you—"

"Absolutely sick, and I've—"

"Meet up with her, old fellow? Isn't she a—"

"Sick!" roared Donald, and banged the door.

He was a hopeless ignoramus, and Charles was the peer of the greatest authorities, living or dead. But the subject, beyond doubt, was the most complex and baffling in the whole field of Womanology. And Charles, standing and staring at that shut door, was possessed with the odd feeling that Donald had got the best of the argument, after all.

Why must Mary always be as independent as the 

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