"What!" In a musical but unappreciated barytone he hummed the initial line of "The Girl I Left Behind Me." "'The maids of France are fond and free.' "Besides," he added, "it's quite unhealthy there at this season. I wouldn't be surprised"--he halted--"at anything," he finished darkly. Outraged by this ruthless if hypothetical murder of an equally hypothetical spouse, she groped vainly for adequate words. Before she could find them-- "I'll wait around--in hopes," he decided calmly. So, that was the attitude this ruffian took with a respectable and ostensibly married woman! And she had mistaken him for a gentleman! She had even begun to feel a reluctant sort of liking for him; at any rate, an interest in his ambiguous and perplexing personality. Now--how dared he! She put it to him at once: "How dare you!" "Flashing eye, stamp of the foot, hands outstretched in gesture of loathing and repulsion; villain registers shame and remorse," prescribed the unimpressed subject of her retort. "As a wife, you are, of course, unapproachable. As a widow, grass-green, crepe-black, or only prospective"--he suddenly assumed a posture made familiar through the public prints by a widely self-exploited savior of the suffering--"there is H-O-P-E!" he intoned solemnly, wagging a benignant forefinger at her. The butterfly struggled with an agonizing desire to break down into unbridled mirth and confess. Pride restrained her; pride mingled with foreboding as to what this exceedingly progressive and by no means unattractive young suitor--for he could be relegated to no lesser category--might do next. She said coolly and crisply: "I wish nothing more to do with you whatever." "Then I needn't quit the Garden of Ed--I mean, Our Square?" "You may do as you see fit," she replied loftily. "Act the gent, can't chuh?" reproved the Mordaunt Estate. "You're makin' the lady cry." "He isn't," denied the lady, with ferocity. "He couldn't." "He'll find no spot to lay his head in Our Square, ma'am," the polite Estate assured her. "If he wants to stay, he'll have to live in his van." "Grand little idea! I'll do it. I'll be a van hermit and fast and watch and pray beneath your windows." "You may live in your van forever," retorted the justly incensed butterfly, "but I'll never speak to you as long as I live in this house. Never, never, _never_!"