"The Wings' apartment is for rent?" "Didn't you know that, old stick-in-the-mud? What's the matter with you? Mary's been hunting a tenant for two weeks." Charles, finding it unnecessary to state that he had not seen Mary for exactly that length of time,--barring one very transient meeting on the street,--merely indicated, without any polish, that, not being a gadabout ass like some, he made no pretense of keeping up with all the latest tittle-tattle. He then asked, in a voice indicating no interest in the subject: "What's Mrs. Wing going to do?" "Going to North Carolina to live with Fanny." "With Fanny!... I suppose she didn't consider going with Miss Mary?" "Couldn't stand the pressure. Why, New York would kill her off like a fly! And besides, she doesn't want to get too far away from the Warders, you know. Of course, Fanny can't make her very comfortable just now--but we talked it all over and that seemed the best arrangement, all round." "I see." "Mary can't turn back now, of course. Well, Charlie," said Donald, earnestly, "I don't hold with her fool notions, and all that but hang it all!--she's no ordinary woman, and this is no ordinary job. Those people are giving her two assistants and $5000 a year. What d'you know about that for a poor little girl?" He was struggling to get into his overcoat without "breaking" his shirt-front--going at once, evidently. But Charles had lost sight of his strategic intentions. "Well, how about you two old chaps for the furnished apartment--February fifteenth, if you want it?" Charles observed that he couldn't look at it. Donald, as if only stimulated by his host's taciturnity, became sentimental. "First Mary, then Mrs. Wing, then me--this is going to be a break-up, Charlie, do you realize it? I'm beginning to feel it, too, let me tell you! Jove," said Donald, putting on his shining head-piece and bringing the conversation back to himself simultaneously--"now that I come right down to it, _I_ don't want to leave this good old town!" He departed, to his unconscious match-making. Charles, left alone, merely sat on at his table. And all that he thought of Angela Flower now was of an insignificant remark she had let fall, the first time they had walked together: "Mr. Garrott do you know who _Marna_ reminded me of? Somebody you admire a great deal...." And then for half an hour, his writer's mind insisted on working over and over that detestable conversation between _Marna_ and her father, and changing it a little, just a little touch here and there, to make it fit smoothly upon Mrs. Wing and Mary.... "I tell you," said the lonely authority, suddenly, bringing his fist down on the table with a thump,--"this whole Movement's a failure if it lessens _woman's lovableness_! I tell you the whole object of this Movement is to make women _more lovable_!"