"But," expostulated his father, from the recesses of the baby lamb, "you may be going to—to Harlem." He could think of nothing worse. "I've been delayed in keeping my appointment on your account, as it is. It's very annoying, Bosworth, that I should be kept waiting a whole hour there in the club while you puttered your time away at—"

"Where do you want to get out, dad?" interrupted the scion of the house of Van Pycke.

Mr. Van Pycke had been thinking. He was not sure that he wanted Bosworth to know just where he was going on this momentous night. It occurred to him that the walk of a block would not only throw the young man off the track, but might also serve to soften the heart of the lady for whom he was risking so much in the shape of health by venturing forth afoot in a storm so relentless. Moreover, he could tell her that he had walked all the way up from the club, cabless because even the hardiest of drivers balked at the prospect. A statement like that, attended by a bushel or more of snow in the vestibule where it had been brushed off by the butler, ought to convince the lady in mind that his devotion was thinly divorced from recklessness. So he told Bosworth that he would get out at Mr. Purdwell's house.

The announcement caused Bosworth mentally to eliminate one of the ladies from his list. He gave a deep sigh of relief at that. The daughter of the shamelessly rich Mr. Purdwell was so homely and so vain that she was almost certain to have said "yes"—with all her millions—if he had asked her. He remembered that Miss Hebbins, almost as rich and quite as eager to get into the Four Hundred, was the next on his list. She lived a few blocks farther up the street.

"All right, dad. Just push the button when we get to Purdwell's corner. I'm going beyond."

Mr. Van Pycke hesitated for a moment. "Would it be too much trouble for you to stop for me on your way down, Bosworth?"

"Not at all, dad." As an afterthought he added: "Something tells me I won't be up here long. Can you be ready at half-past ten?"

"I think so," said his father, who had some misgivings.

The taxi struggled bravely along for a couple of blocks. Bosworth was dozing comfortably. His father, seized by an unwelcome sense of compunction, was turning something over in his mind. In the end, he concluded to break a certain piece of news to his son.

"Your mother has been 

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