She had pumped out of him the hour at which he took his walks (he knew nothing about the opera-glasses as yet); and straightway she began waylaying him on the street, nothing less. She had all but forced a book on him, which he would have to return with a "call"--she supposed; when he did not call, she did something which could only be described as inveigling him to her home (that was his word now), by the shallow ruse of a bridge-party; and then and there she had (you might say) flung both arms about his neck and kissed him. And by these proceedings, it appeared to her, in that queer world where Nice Girls lived, that she had affixed a claim upon him, fairly bagged his heart, in short. "Why do you do this?" said she, insistently. Oh, how simple life looked to such as these, her and her sisters of the Naïve Sex! Forever putting that stereotyped query, forever expecting to elicit the hoarse but extremely welcome reply, "Because I love you so!" No conquest too extraordinary to seem at all surprising to their quaint little self-approval! There was humor now in his imagining of the Womanly Woman as quietly waiting at home to be wooed. It appeared that Miss Angela had done everything but that. A church clock boomed suddenly: it was half-past eleven. The young man's eyes fell from the face of the Citizen. Through the stark stems of the winter trees a yellow light glowed strongly in a lower window. That was Olive Street there; this light shone in the Wings' house. He noted it absently, wondering why Mary worked so late to-night. On the heels of that came another wonder, more personal: What would Mary think of these proceedings upon a sofa? There must have been a bracing quality in the thought of Mary Wing, for Charles's hot desire to justify himself chilled instantly. Mary had her faults, heaven knew; but she had nothing to do with sofas. In a wink, the young man became staggered at himself. For there was nothing he had been thinking just now that he had not seen clearly for many years past. What, then? Had his vision of late been blurred in the cheapest way conceivable? When he told himself that he was scientifically commending the supplying of Beauty and Charm, was it possible that he, Charles Garrott, had been subtly allured by La Femme?