"Well," said Michael Daragh, shaking his head, "I'm telling you there's a rare lot of enmeshing, Jane Vail." Emma Ellis wagged an eager head. "You can't possibly know, in your sheltered life----" "But I've been about a bit in my day--(didn't I come from my verdant village to the wicked metropolis?)--and I've known men in all ages and stages. My feeling is that these girls must have had a small 'come-hither' in one eye at least, or occasionally men might have passed the butter without a sinister meaning, might have seen them home without attempting to abduct them!" "You came directly to Mrs. Hills, whom you had known for years," said Emma Ellis. "And you knew that Mr. Harrison who helped you to place your writing, and you had enough money to live on." "But I've roamed the city alone, all hours of night or day, and I used to go back and forth to boarding-school alone--a day's and a night's journey, and abroad I used to trot off to galleries and museums by myself, and----" "But you always had your background, Jane Vail, the way you knew how safe you were." "You can't prove these books are foolish by _your_ experience, Miss Vail." Emma Ellis was glowing from the Irishman's championship. Jane was still for a moment. "No; I don't suppose I can prove it by any experience I've had in the past," she said, slowly, "but I can prove it by an experience I'm going to have!" "Now what do you mean by that?" Daragh wanted to know. "Are you telling your fortune?" Jane sat up straight, warm-cheeked, excited. "No, but I'm going out, alone and unaided, under a neat new name, with some cheap, plain clothes in a cheap, plain trunk, to Chicago, with fifty dollars only between me and the cold world,--and see what I see!" "Well, now, God save us, but that's the mad plan, surely!" "It isn't mad at all! I want a little change,--I've been working like a dynamo--and it will be loads of fun and I'll get corking copy out of it." "It won't be a fair test," the superintendent protested. "You'll be--you, all the time." "That's very nice of you," Jane gave her her glad boy's grin, "but I won't be. Don't you suppose I have imagination enough to project myself into another type? For a month I'll support myself in any way I can, nursery governess, mother's helper, upstair-work, shop, anything I can get. I'll _be_ that sort of girl, dress, diction, everything. I'll write a truthful bulletin of my luck to you two, but you won't have any address, and no one will know that--let's see ... _Edna Miles_--isn't that reasonable?--that Edna Miles is the lucky Jane Vail who wrote _Cross Your Heart_ and has a wicked balance in the bank!" She pulled herself up out of the depths of the great chair and put on her furs. "I'm quite keen about it! It's going to be more fun than anything I've ever done. Tell Jane good-by, old dears! You'll hear from Edna Miles before long!" "Wait a bit till we talk it over," said Daragh. "'Tis a wild plan, I'm telling you, will waste your time and----"