She fluttered back to his

forgettin' myself again-" side, tears were in her eyes and voice. “I know you're not stro-ong, and I'm forgettin', too, all you been through this afternoon-enough to lay out a real peart man, for all you're so nervy-Hen-" She took his sagging arm in both hands, giving way to uncontrollable sobs; he shook like a sapling in the wind under the burden of her grief. Oh-Hen-say you forgive me for-for for-gett-tt-in' myself! And you all weak what with pullin' an' blood-lettin'—"

'There, you had good cause-I ain't sayin' but what you had good cause," he comforted her, maintaining his balance with some effort. "It come on you suddenlike. Why, it clean knocked me out when I first heard of it -me, a man. You've done awful well, Ethel, not to get more upset than what you have."

"No I been weak-foolish-" insisted Ethel, in gulping gasps.

"You wouldn't a-been a woman, if you hadn't been."

"No. I s'pose not. I s'pose not, Hen." She bent and affectionately wiped her eyes and nose on the shoulder of his best coat. "There now-we all got our senses back, anyway," Henry comforted her uncomfortably. "Brace up now, Ethel; this young lady has asked us a question, and it deserves an answer-a fair, square answer." Henry became judicial.

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The question she asks is whether, just because some children has had to bear their parents' sins, that makes it

right. And the answer is no, that don't make it right. You're wrong, Ethel, if you think it does!"

"Yes, Hen."

"I was just about to say, when you forgot yourself, Ethel " The jab was gentle and, if not then necessary, might help to reduce the dangers of a future occasion. "I was just about to say, it seemed like to me that the whole thing was this: I got a responsibility to you, Ethel -the biggest responsibility, o' course, seein's you're my wife, and a man's wife comes first-I hope you'd agree with that, Miss Clotilde?"

"Yes I would."

"And I got another responsibility to this young lady here. Now, the whole thing's how to make them two responsibilities gibe-tell me if I'm wrong, I'm ready to stand c'rected if I don't hit the nail fair on the head!" Ethel hastily anticipated praise from another quarter: “You do, Hen-you hit it right square on the head.” And, Miss Clotilde-"

"I ag-gree," said Clotilde, between chattering teeth. Truth, beautiful and inviolable Truth, had gone out of the proceedings. The whole matter of claiming her father seemed to the tired and chilly girl to have descended to a sordid, uninspiriting plane. She foresaw a haggling over details, compromises, sickening compromises and reservations. She was hungry, disgusted, worn out; she wanted to go home.

"Well, then-" Henry gave his new hat a hitch forward. "I think the best thing we can all do is just to go along, and think it all over, sleep on it a couple nights, then have another talk. How about it?"

"Hen's right!" asserted Ethel.

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I ag-gree," shivered Clotilde.

"I'd just like to see you, Ethel, shake hands with Miss Clotilde afore we go," said the old man. "You both

got good heads, and I don't think either of you's goin' to worry too long over by-gones, once you get your heads to work. I think you might's well be friends right now as later. Go over there and shake hands with her, Ethel -don't be bashful-she'll be glad to have you-you know I ginly give you purty good advice, if I do say it myself as shouldn't. Go on-shake hands with her. Might invite her up to see us some afternoon soon, too, seein's we've agreed to talk it all over together. Go on -you know the chores ain't done—we'd rightly ought to be movin' along-go on, Ethel!"

And Ethel did.

Common Sense and Morality, looking like a prosperous commercial traveler and a leading anti-suffragist, had dinner at the Woodbridge Inn.

"Awful botch, wasn't it?" complained Common Sense, over the soup.

"Terrible," admitted Morality, "even though you know I can't agree with you as to the cause of the botch."

"If each of us-including poor dilapidated Truth— could only get one simon-pure disciple and set 'em at it, we might find out something," said Common Sense. "But, I confess, I don't know where I could lay my hands on one. The country's going to the dogs.'

"Worse than the dogs-to hell direct," declared Morality. "My only ray of hope is the awful mess they made of Truth-and her exponent was rather more of a flivver than either of ours, wasn't she? Poor old Truth! She has a harder time of it than either of us more sensible and conventional divinities among these preposterous mortals!"

But Clotilde had already caught up with Truth, was holding her hand in her closed carriage, making extravagant promises to her, and Truth, nestling beneath her eider-down and steamer-rug, was a trifle comforted.

CHAPTER IX

CY WETMORE GAVE A PARTY, AND ALL THE BUCKS WERE THERE

"EVERYBODY'S here now but the Major and Arthur Kling," said Cy Wetmore, jigging about in the road in front of the house he rented for a studio, jigging about in company with a score of other bright young, middleaged, and oldish men; the night was chilly, and they didn't want to enter Cy's house, from the front windows of which the lift and flicker of an open fire beckoned good cheer, until the party was complete. There are some parties so carefully arranged that they need to burst full-blown, without that straggling effect so common to less artistic parties.

Oliver James remarked: "Of course, Arthur might easily lose himself between his home and here, or forget where he was going; but it's queer about the Major. He's usually so prompt to his meals."

"Oh, Oliver!" called Jack Stokes, in a highty-tighty voice: "do let me slap you on the wrist!"

"Never-you might derange my wrist-watch, you brute!" objected Oliver. He was a slight, delicate-faced, red-headed, bespectacled youth, a designer of tapestries for the Herter Looms, and an authority on Gobelins. Jack Stokes, corduroyed, flannel-shirted, ruddy-faced and robust as a young farmhand, did landscape pochades in his better hours, and designed linoleum in his worst.