“Very well, very well,” said her father, obediently, “she shall meet him; remind me of it just before I leave. And now I must run. I have a case in court at ten o’clock.” He stood up and gave one of his handsome, iron-gray side-whiskers an absent caress. He was not a particularly good-looking man, but he had a keen, dark eye, and a square, heavy jaw, in both of which features lay the secret of his great success in his profession. He was devoted to Helen, and had allowed her, with only an occasional protest, to bring him up. He could be brusque and severe in court, but in Helen’s hands he was a wax ball into which she delighted to poke her dainty fingers. Helen wrote a note to Hermia, and he took it with him to send by an unwinged Mercury. On Friday morning Helen went over to Second Avenue to make sure that her friend had not changed her mind. She found Hermia in her boudoir, with one of Cryder’s books in her hand and another on a table beside her. “What do you think of him?” demanded Miss Simms, somewhat anxiously, as she adjusted her steel-bound self in a pile of cushions—straight-backed chairs in this room there were none. Hermia shrugged her shoulders: “A decorous seasoning of passion; a clear, delicate gravy of sentiment; a pinch of pathos; a garnish of analysis; and a solid roast of dialect. Woe is me!—I have read two whole volumes; and I pray that I may like the author better than his books. But he is clever; there is no denying that!” “Oh, horribly clever! What are you going to wear, to-night?” “That dark-green velvet I showed you the other day.” “Lovely! And it will match your eyes to a shade. You will look, as usual, as if you had just stepped out of an old picture. Mr. Cryder will put you in a book.” “If he does I shall be a modern picture, not an old one. That man could not write a tale of fifty years ago.” “So much the better for you! What you want is to fall in love with a modern man, and let him teach you that the mediæval was a great animal, who thought of nothing but what he ate and drank. I do not claim that the species is extinct; but, at least, in these days we have a choice.” * * * * * CHAPTER XII. THE CLUB OF FREE DISCUSSION. Hermia looked at her reflection that evening with a smile. The shadowed emerald of her velvet gown made her hair glow like vibrant flame. The color wandered through her cheeks and emptied itself into her lips. Her eyes were as green as the limpid floor of ocean-hollowed caverns. Across her ivory-white shoulder swept a curving blue vein, thin as an infant’s lash, and on the rise of her right breast were three little moles, each marking the corner of a tiny triangle.