"I can endure what you can. I’d like to do it.... Would you rather not have me?" "Why, I—it would be delightful—charming—but we had not even dreamed of such a thing." He turned to Diana. "Will _you_ let me try?" She said, confused: "I hadn’t thought of such a thing.... Could it be done?" "Why not?" asked Silvette, immensely interested. "When people come, we can say, ’We and our cousin, Mr. Edgerton, are associated as social entertainers.’" "Oh, if you put it that way they’ll think he does Punch and Judy and we dance queer dances!" exclaimed Diana in consternation. Edgerton threw back his head and laughed, utterly unable to control his merriment, and Silvette caught the infection, and her clear, delicious laughter filled the sunny studio. She showed her white teeth when she laughed. "Oh, it is perfectly horrid of me to think of such a thing, but I can’t help thinking of three trained acrobats," said Silvette, breathless. "_Does_ it seem funny for three of us to be associated in entertaining guests? _Does_ it, Mr. Edgerton? Or am I only frivolous?" After their laughter had ceased, and their breath had returned, he said: "Wherever we go—whoever employs us—the other guests will suppose us to be guests, too. Only the guilty millionaire from outer darkness with a new house on Fifth Avenue and a newer one in the country will know." Silvette said: "Do you realize that it is perfectly dear of you to propose such a thing?" Diana said nothing. Silvette went on: "I know perfectly well and you know, too—that your name would be worth almost anything to the wealthy snob who employs us." Diana said nothing. "To have an Edgerton as a guest would elevate our prospective employer to the seventh heaven of snobbery," said Silvette. "Diane and I would shine serenely in the reflected relationship——" "Don’t make fun of me," he said. "Why, I’m not. I really mean it. My instincts have been so warped and materialized and commercialized that here I am seriously proposing to make family capital out of the name of one branch of the family. I really do mean it, Mr. Edgerton." "No," said Diana quietly. He turned toward her. "Do you vote against me?" "Yes." "Don’t, please," he said, looking at her. She met his eye calmly for a moment, then looked at her sister. "Do you think it a decent thing to do?" she asked; "our making plans to live on Mr. Edgerton?" "Good heavens!" he said impatiently, "my being part of a family combination isn’t going to alter your success in any way." "Your name makes it sure." "Your youth and beauty and good breeding make it sure. My name has nothing to do with it." "Then why do you propose it?" He laughed. "Because I’ve got to make a living, too." "There are less humiliating ways of making a living—for you," said Diana steadily. He looked first at Silvette, then at her, deliberately, and his face altered. "I want to look out for you," he said, "and that’s the plain truth."