of vengeance for which she had so longed. Yet, this one thing was so vital to her that she said nothing of her purposes, not even to Aggie, though that observant person may have possessed suspicions more or less near the truth.

It was some such suspicion that lay behind her speech as, in negligee, she sat cross-legged on the bed, smoking a cigarette in a very knowing way, while watching Mary, who was adjusting her hat before the mirror of her dressing-table, one pleasant spring morning.

"Dollin' up a whole lot, ain't you?" Aggie remarked, affably, with that laxity of language which characterized her natural moods.

"I have a very important engagement with Dick Gilder," Mary replied, tranquilly. She vouchsafed nothing more definite as to her intentions.

"Nice boy, ain't he?" Aggie ventured, insinuatingly.

"Oh, I suppose so," came the indifferent answer from Mary, as she tilted the picture hat to an angle a trifle more jaunty.

The pseudo cousin sniffed.

"You s'pose that, do you? Well, anyhow, he's here so much we ought to be chargin' him for his meal-ticket. And yet I ain't sure that you even know whether he's the real goods, or not."

The fair face of Mary Turner hardened the least bit. There shone an expression of inscrutable disdain in the violet eyes, as she turned to regard Aggie with a level glance.

"I know that he's the son--the only son!--of Edward Gilder. The fact is enough for me."

The adventuress of the demure face shook her head in token of complete bafflement. Her rosy lips pouted in petulant dissatisfaction.

"I don't get you, Mary," she admitted, querulously. "You never used to look at the men. The way you acted when you first run round with me, I thought you sure was a suffragette. And then you met this young Gilder--and--good-night, nurse!"

The hardness remained in Mary's face, as she continued to regard her friend. But, now, there was something quizzical in the glance with which she accompanied the monosyllable:

"Well?"

Again, Aggie shook her head in perplexity.

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