Although nothing seemed to be expected of him, Pape sought for a seemly retort. “Let us hope that we never get that far along.” “Let us hope that we get there soon,” she corrected him. “Come, shan’t we be on our way?” Mrs. Sturgis followed them to the street door; showed a becoming anxiety; hoped, even prayed, that they’d return safely. “Safely and anon—don’t expect me sooner than anon.” Irene tossed the promise with a finger-flung kiss from the saddle into which she had swung with scarcely a foot-touch upon the stirrup held for her. Pape instructed the groom as to his return to stables on the other side of the park. They were off on the most parade-effect ride in which he, for one, ever had participated. The girl pulled in close enough to keep talking during their necessarily sedate pace down the avenue toward The Plaza entrance to the park. “You were a dear to keep calling up while I was in the country. Oh, don’t look so innocent!” Her charge made him hope he wasn’t showing in his face the strange something that happened to his spinal column each time she called him “dear”—he felt so sure that she only was leading up to that adorably Yankee-ized “dar-rling” of hers. “I’m sorry if I—glad if I look innocent.” “You ought to be. Any modern man ought to be.” She laughed more happily than he could manage to do at the moment. “And don’t you deny calling me—don’t you deny anything! It won’t do a bit of good.” Believing that it wouldn’t—not with Irene—he didn’t. “You see, Jasper’s butlering job depends upon his accuracy,” she continued. “Well he knows if he lost me one single message from one single only man I ever loved——” “We trust that all your only-ever men are single?” he persiflaged into her pause. “Most. Never cared for the back-door and porch affairs—one has to be so discreet. You don’t yourself, do you, Why-Not?” In her query Pape saw an opening for the idea which had wakened him up. Not that he would have pried into the affairs of Jane Lauderdale through her discreet-and-proud-of-it young cousin any more than he had crossed the cobbles of that soiled East Side street last night to question her fellow-tenants on the fire escape. No. He knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t do anything so deliberately base as that. But if Irene must babble, it was only fair that she babble upon a subject that interested the semi-silent member of the colloquy. So—— “No, I don’t like side-porch affairs,” he admitted, “although I’ve got the reputation of being discreet.” “That’s why you’re so nice-nice,” enthused Irene. “The man’s being good gives the girl all the better chance to be bad. Oh, I _hope_ I’ve shocked you! Come across, B. B.—that’s short either for ‘Blushing Bachelor’ or ‘Brazen Benedict.’ _Haven’t_ I? “You’ll shock me worse if you don’t hold in until that traffic cop blows his horn.” With the warning, Pape reached over and himself curbed her black until their crossing into the bridle path was whistle-advised.