"I do feel obliged! I _must_! We’re poor. We’ve spent all our money, and we _can’t_ go anywhere else very well!" Edgerton glanced at the luxury in the next room, astonished; then his gaze reverted to the silk-clad figure before him. "You don’t understand, of course," she said, flushing. "How could you suppose us to be almost penniless living here in such a beautiful place with all those new trunks and gowns and pretty things! But _that_ is exactly why we are doing it!" She leaned forward in her chair, the tint of excitement in her cheeks. "After the failure, Silvette and I hadn’t anything very much!—_you_ know how everything of uncle’s went—" She stopped abruptly. "Why—why, probably everything of yours went, too! Did it?" He laughed: "Pretty nearly everything." "Oh! oh!" she cried; "what a perfectly atrocious complication! Perhaps—perhaps you haven’t money enough to—to go somewhere else for a while. Have you?" "Well, I’ll fix it somehow." "Mr. Edgerton!" she said excitedly, "Silvette and I have _got_ to go!" "No," he said laughing, "you’ve only got to go on with your story, Miss Tennant. I am a very interested and sympathetic listener." "Yes," she said desperately, "I must go on with that, too. Listen, Mr. Edgerton; we thought a long while and discussed _everything_, and we concluded to stake everything on an idea that came to Silvette. So we drew out all the money we had and we paid all our just debts, and we parted with our chaperone—who was a perfect d-darling—I’ll tell you about her sometime—and we took Argent, our cat, and came straight to New York, and we hunted and hunted for an apartment until we found this! And then—do you know what we did?" she demanded excitedly. "I couldn’t guess!" said Edgerton, smiling. "We bought clothes—beautiful clothes! And everything luxurious that we didn’t have we bought—almost frightened to death while we were doing it—and _then_ we advertised!" [Illustration: "We _had_ to spend all our money on clothes."] "Advertised!" "From _here_! Can you _ever_ forgive us?" "Of course," he said, mystified; "but what did you advertise?" "Ourselves!" "_What!_" "Certainly; and we’ve had replies, but we haven’t liked the people so far. Indeed, we advertised in the most respectable daily, weekly and monthly papers—" She sprang to her feet, trotted over to the sofa, picked up an illustrated periodical devoted to country life, and searching hastily through the advertising pages, found and read aloud to him, still standing there, the following advertisement: "_Two ladies of gentle birth and breeding, cultivated linguists, musicians, thoroughly conversant with contemporary events, efficient at auction bridge, competent to arrange dinners and superintend decorations, desire employment in helping to entertain house parties, week-ends, or unwelcome but financially important relatives and other visitations, at country houses, camps, bungalows, or shooting boxes_.