"And borrowed a lot more, too!" exclaimed the Judge, suddenly laughing loud and long. "Gad, I lent her an armful, fact!--night we had the sleet-storm!" "You did?--good! We'll convince her we're her true friends yet." His secretary, having gazed at him a moment with brilliant blankness, suddenly exclaimed: "Why, Charles, my dear fellow, you're looking like a fighting-cock! You must have put on a stone--fine! Here, let me feel your muscle!" Charles tried to evade that ceremony, but it was, of course, no use. Having caught him going through certain setting-up exercises one night, and being misled by the light remark he let fall, Judge Blenso was irrevocably convinced that the sedentary Charles had an affair of honor on his hands. The night he made this discovery--the very night Charles secretly began the exercises, of course, the night of the day he had seen Mysinger on the street--the Judge had become almost dangerously excited, springing from bed and walking about a long time in his pajamas, saying over and over: "The old blood'll tell! Gad, you know! It's the old blood!" All attempts to explain, then and since, had been utterly without effect. However, a knock on the door interrupted the proceedings, and Mrs. Herman came walking into the Studio--a dark, round, rosy little body, beetle-browed but beaming. "Such a popular man I never saw!" said she, roguishly. "One lady meeting him and driving him up from the station, another calling him up before he's hardly arrived, and goodness knows who'll be next!" "Why, who's calling me, Mrs. Herman?" "It's Miss Wing!--waiting at the phone! And no wonder, with all you and the Judge have done for her, I'm sure! Judge, I hope you find your new chair comfortable?" Having received the unexpected summons with a peculiar start of gladness, the young man descended the stairs with the most agreeable anticipations. To do a valuable service for a friend is, with some natures, to become fonder than ever of that friend; and Charles, from the moment of reading her unprecedented letter, was aware that his original services to Mary had distinctly had these sentimental reactions. (For of course such natures _are_ sentimental, disgustingly so, and real Men--not to say realistic men--invariably hate and despise their friends, and speak to said friends at all only with a view to taking away their money or their wives.) So, sitting down at the little telephone-table in the dark rear-hall, Charles smiled to himself and said, in a false voice:-- "Pardon me, but is this the famous Miss Wing, who--" And Mary's voice seemed to spring toward him through the receiver, like an embrace: "Oh, _King Charles_!" It was a little name she had made long ago by turning his first two names about, but reserved for rare occasions only. Rare also was it to hear this commonly contained voice so deeply stirred.