One ordinarily does not ask permission of one's cook, but Mary was such a mother to me that I felt the announcement to be no more than her due. "Who is it, Missus, dear?" "Miss Flora Forsyth. Have you ever heard me speak of her?" "Do you mean that blonde on the mantelpiece?" she asked, in the conversational tone of one who but passed the time o' day. "Mary!" I said. She walked up to Flora's picture, took it down, looked at it, and put it back. "Well," I said, tentatively, "what do you think of her?" "What do I think of her?" demanded Mary, wheeling on me so suddenly that I dodged. "I think she is a little blister--that's what I think of her. And you'll rue the day you ever asked her into your house." Ordinarily one would reprove one's cook for such freedom of speech, but I had brought it on myself. Therefore I saved my breath, put on my hat, and went out, ruminating and somewhat shaken in my mind to have the two household authorities against me. However, true to my determination to make her visit as attractive as possible, I purchased at least a dozen sorts of fine French marmalades, jellies, sweets, and fancy pickles, such as schoolgirls love. She had told me so many times how she had always wanted her breakfast in her room, but had never been able to have it, that I decided to give her that privilege in my house. I told Mary with some misgivings, and showed her the things I had bought. To my surprise, Mary assented joyfully. I never knew why until after Flora left. Then Mary told me. I even selected the china she was to use on the breakfast-tray. It was blue and gold. Flora loved blue. Then I took a final look at everything, gave a few last orders, and dismissed all worry from my mind. Her room, _the guest chamber_ of the Jardines, was fresh for her. No one had ever slept in that bed, fluttered those curtains, nor written at that desk. Flora would be its first occupant. And how her blond beauty matched its pale blue and gold loveliness! It gave me thrills of delight to think of her in the midst of it all. But of course it was Cary I loved. Flora simply fascinated me. She possessed the attractions of a Circe, but Cary was worth a million of her, and I knew it and I wanted her to have Artie Beg, or anybody else on earth she fancied. The whole proposition was as plain as day when I came to think about it. I was Cary's champion, Cary's friend, and intended Cary to win. Why, therefore, had I permitted myself to be inveigled into asking Flora to visit me, under the supposition that I was going to help her? It was not because Cary had begged me to. Not at all. It was Flora herself who had managed it, I reflected, and it gave me a bitter, uncomfortable twinge to realize that whatever Flora had wanted me to do, in our brief friendship, I had done, no matter whose judgment it went against. Had the girl hypnotic power, or was I a weak fool to be flattered into doing her bidding?