"How long do you think we ought to wait before--well, you know?" Marian Seaton was asking. "Oh, about three weeks, I should say," lazily returned Maizie Gilbert. "We'll have to go slowly. It will take three or four months to do the thing properly. If we rushed it, it wouldn't be half as effective as to take our time. What about Elsie?" "We'll tell her about the dress business, but no more than that. She mustn't know a word about the rest. She has a frightful temper, you know. If she happened to get good and mad at me, she'd tell everything she knew to the very first person she ran across. She'll be properly shocked when she hears about the dress. We'll tell it to her as a great secret," planned Marian. "I won't say anything outright about the ring. I'll leave it to her to draw her own conclusions. She's rabid about Judy Stearns. It seems she has heard that Judy nicknamed her the 'ignoble Noble.'" "That's a funny one!" Maizie appeared to derive signal enjoyment from this revelation. "I fail to see anything funny about it." Marian stiffened perceptibly. "Please remember, Maiz, that Elsie is _my_ cousin." "Oh, I haven't forgotten it. That's a funny nickname, just the same." Maizie calmly declined to be thus easily suppressed. "It suits me to know that Elsie heard about it," Marian said, after an instant's vexed silence. She knew better than to continue to oppose Maizie. For one of her sluggish temperament, Maizie could turn decidedly disagreeable when she chose. "Yes, it comes in very nicely just now," drawled Maizie. "Elsie needs a spur to keep her going. Keep her in a rage and she's a fine little mischief-maker. Let her calm down and she's likely to crumple. She really has some idea of principle, only she doesn't know it. I wonder if she'll ever find it out." "Do you mean to insinuate that _I_ haven't?" demanded Marian crossly. "No; I say it plainly. Neither you nor I have any principle," declared Maizie with her slow smile. "We might as well be honest about it. We never are about anything else, you know. It doesn't worry me. It's rather interesting, I think. Keeping things stirred up relieves the dull monotony. There's always the chance that we may win. We have never won yet, you know. We're still here, though, and that's a consolation. This latest idea of yours ought to amount to something in the long run." "Really, Maiz, you are the most cold-blooded girl I ever met!" Marian cried out in exasperation. "Sometimes I feel as if I didn't understand you at all." "I don't pretend to understand myself," returned Maizie tranquilly. "It would be too much trouble to try. Besides, self-analysis might be fatal to my comfort. I might dig up a conscience, and that would be a bore. I'd rather take it easy and smile and be a villain still. Changes are so disagreeable. You'd find that out, if one came over me. You'd be minus a valuable ally." "Do you mean that as a threat?"