"Square business" to him meant something very delightful to the average society girl. Courteous manners, marked attentions, openly expressed admiration, and slavery almost if she proved exacting. But Standish had an idea, and not a too comfortable one about the character of the girl he had to deal with. And so this afternoon, he presented himself before her with all the charm of a studied negligence which attracts in spite of one's self. He was very careful about all that passed, as yet he was only groping in the dark. If he once knew whether she loved Guy or not, his game would be an easy one, and this was the first problem he set himself to solve. He spoke to her of a great many things before he ventured on the subject that interested him most. When he did finally broach it, he merely asked in a simple sort of way: "Have you heard any news of--a--our mutual friend, Mr. Elersley?" The die was cast. He had only this instrument with which to apply his skill, and had he used it well or not? The sound of this name was the "Open Sesame" to Honor's heartful of secrets, and Standish scanned her face with a look of penetrating inquiry as he pronounced it. But men are fools. Honor Edgeworth was a woman and a woman's face is not an index to woman's soul. Truly her slender fingers clutched each other nervously until the golden circlets around them nigh entered the tender flesh. But who felt that besides herself? It is a woman's own fault if she is not appreciated to-day, for men will never know from her lips of the hundred moral victories she achieves daily. Even those ordinary common-place females who make the dresses and trim the hats of the creatures our men adore, even these do their inner selves more violence in one short day than a man endures for a life time. Give me a man for courage, if you will, for power of action, if you will, but give me a woman with a heart for an unrivalled endurance and fortitude. Vivian Standish cool, keen, deliberating, could read nothing in his companion's face, and thus baffled, he began inwardly to wonder what would be his next course. Honor looked at him in the most provokingly composed way and said dryly: "You may give the word 'friend' a rather extensive meaning for aught I know. Things have grown into such an exaggerated state, now-a-days, that a commonly sensible person is lost towards understanding them." Standish winced. "Which may infer that I am not on intimate terms with my common sense," he thought, and aloud: "I will retract the word if you please, and consider you and Mr. Elersley as strangers." Strangers! that was true, deep down in her heart, but with her lips she said: "By no means, Guy Elersley and I have ceased to be strangers from the first moment we met. But this can not interest you. Let us talk of something else. Do you enjoy the last of the season here?"