and grossness—”

“Oh, Philip! How can you! Grossness! He’s the most refined——”

“You haven’t announced Mildred’s engagement yet, have you?” her husband interrupted. “I’m glad of that,” he went on in a relieved tone as she shook her head, “and I hope you will not for some time.”

“Mildred is beginning to look forward rather eagerly to being married,” said Mrs. Annister, smiling soberly. “I’m almost afraid she’s more in love than he is.”

“I’m so glad I came tonight. It has been lovely!” Henrietta Marne at that moment was saying to her host, at the other side of the room.

“You have enjoyed it?” and he bent upon her his brown eyes with their look of caressing indulgence. “I’m glad of that, for I’m afraid you don’t have as many enjoyments as a girl ought to have, by right of her youth and beauty and charm.”

“I was afraid I ought not to come, because my mother is ill.”

“Ah, that Puritan conscience of yours, Miss Marne! Don’t be so afraid of it when the question is nothing more than getting some innocent pleasure out of life.”

“But one isn’t afraid of one’s conscience. One just takes counsel of it, or with it.”

“Of course! But if one—you, for instance—yielded to it more than its due—and it really is insatiable, you know, if you let it get the upper hand—what a wretched affair life would be! Simply unendurable!”

“But there’s always a satisfaction in doing what one ought to do, Mr. Brand—don’t you think so?—even if it is hard.”

“Oh, if you like your satisfaction to taste hard and bitter! I don’t! I think it’s much better to hold ourselves free to take advantage of all the possibilities of happiness, little and big, that come our way. It’s really a duty that we owe ourselves. And, of course, if we are happy we make others about us happy too. You, I’m sure, need enjoyment so much that it would be a great mistake for you to throw away any opportunity. And I’m very glad you didn’t neglect this little one!”

Mrs. Fenlow and her son were at his elbow to say goodnight, and as he shook hands with Mark, whose mother had already passed on to an exchange of confidences concerning hairdressers with Miss Ardeen Andrews, he laid his hand affectionately on the young man’s shoulder and said in a low tone:

“You’re coming tomorrow night, Mark, of course?”

“Sure! D. V. and d. p.—God willing and the devil permitting!”

“It will be very different from this,” and Brand smiled slightly, a winning, deprecating smile, as with the least perceptible motion of his head he indicated the company that filled his spacious drawing room. “But a man doesn’t want his relaxations to be all alike, any more than he wants all flowers to be of the same color.”

CHAPTER IV

Billikins is Frightened

It was inevitable that the personality of Felix Brand should loom large in the home of his secretary. Mrs. Marne was a semi-invalid and suffered frequent relapses into more serious illness. The care of her and the management of their little household were Isabella’s part, and to these two, much confined at home and by necessity cut off from nearly all outside pleasures and interests, the chief daily event was Henrietta’s return from her busy hours and responsible tasks in the architect’s office. But, of still more importance, their worldly welfare hung upon the salary which he paid to the younger sister.

Mrs. Marne’s husband had been a physician in one of the smaller cities of Massachusetts; but, though a New Englander, he had not possessed the characteristic thrift of the sons of that region, and consequently his widow and his daughters found, after his death, that the settlement of his affairs left them a very slender sum of money. It was necessary that one of the young women should become an income earner, and it was decided that Henrietta, since she had a better head for affairs and more liking for business, should take this share of their burden. There was enough money to give her a course in secretarial training in a women’s vocational college in Boston and to support them all in economical comfort until she should be ready to begin her work. As she was at once successful in finding a position in New York, they invested the few hundred dollars still left in a first payment upon a little home in Staten Island, and they were now carefully husbanding Henrietta’s salary and paying off the remaining debt upon the instalment plan.

It was through Dr. Annister that Henrietta found a good position so quickly. He and Dr. Marne had been classmates and warm friends during the years of their medical training, and afterward, although one had gone to New York and become one of the famous specialists of his generation and the other had sunk into the obscurity of general practice in a small city, they had kept up their friendship in a desultory way, with occasional meetings at medical conventions and now and then a letter. When Dr. Marne died, a missive came from his friend that seemed so simple and genuine in its feeling that it deeply touched Henrietta, to whom fell the duty of answering it, because of her mother’s stricken condition.

The memory of that letter and a warmly reverent feeling for the friendship that had called it forth stayed long in her heart. And at last, when she was ready to try conclusions with the world, and felt sure, with the usual conviction of youth, that it would be much better to go somewhere else to begin, she wrote to Dr. Annister, telling him briefly her plans and hopes and what her training had been. And the famous Dr. Philip Annister interested himself in the daughter of his old friend, and at once found for her a well-paid position as secretary for Felix Brand, his prospective son-in-law. Mrs. Annister also showed much kindly feeling for the girl and often had her stay overnight at their home for a visit to the theatre or the opera.

Between Mildred Annister and Henrietta there existed a friendship which made up in outward warmth what it lacked in depth. For Mildred, with her woman’s heart but lately awakened and filled to the brim with absorbed and adoring first love, could not help some secret resentment that any other woman should be anything to her beloved or give him any service. Her good sense told her that this was unreasonable, while her respect and kindly feeling for Henrietta made her ashamed of it. So she did her best to conceal it and in the effort overdid her expressions of affection. Henrietta would have responded to these with girlish ardor, for she liked Mildred and greatly admired her tall and stately beauty, had she not felt some barrier just below the surface that kept her as reserved, in all the little confidences that usually go on between young women, as was Mildred herself. She did not even know of the semi-engagement, to which Dr. and Mrs. Annister had not yet given their full assent, that existed between Mildred and Felix Brand, although she felt sure that the girl was whole-heartedly in love with him.

As the weeks went on and autumn merged into winter, Henrietta sometimes noticed a harried look upon her employer’s countenance. She wondered much about this, for he was winning success and honors in ample measure. An international committee of artists and architects, sitting in judgment upon the