Helen blew the horn, once, twice and again. "No, really, dear, I wouldn't," continued Mary. "Of course you know he's a terrible flirt. Why he can't even leave the girls at the office alone." Quite unconsciously Helen adopted the immemorial formula. "Burdon Woodward has always acted to me like a perfect gentleman," said she. "Of course he has, dear. If he hadn't, I know you wouldn't have gone out with him last night, for instance. But he has such a reckless, headstrong way with him. Suppose last night, instead of coming home, he had turned the car toward Boston or New York, what would you have done then?" "Don't worry. I could have stopped him." "Stopped him? How could you, if he were driving very fast?" "Oh, it's easy enough to stop a car," said Helen. "One of the girls at school showed me." Leaning over, she ran her free hand under the instrument board. "Feel these wires back of the switch," she said. "All you have to do is to reach under quick and pull one loose--just a little tug like this--and you can stop the wildest man, and the wildest car on earth.... See?" In the excitement of her demonstration she tugged the wire too hard. It came loose in her hand and the engine stopped as though by magic. "It's a good thing we are up to the house," she laughed. "You needn't look worried. Robert can fix it in a minute." It wasn't that, though, which troubled Mary. "Think of her knowing such a thing!" she was saying to herself. "How her mind must run at times!" But of course she couldn't voice a thought like that. "All the same, Helen," she said aloud, "I wouldn't go out with him so much, if I were you. People will begin to notice it, and you know the way they talk." Helen tossed her head, but in her heart she knew that her cousin was right--a knowledge which only made her the more defiant. Yes ...people were beginning to notice it.... The Saturday afternoon before, when Burdon was taking her to the club in his gallant new car, they had stopped at the station to let a train pass. A girl on the sidewalk had smiled at Burdon and stared at Helen with equal intensity and equal significance. "Who was that?" asked Helen, when the train had passed. "Oh, one of the girls at the office. She's in my department--sort of a bookkeeper." Noticing Helen's silence he added more carelessly than before, "You know how some girls act if you are any way pleasant to them." It was one of those trifling incidents which occasionally seem to have the deepest effect upon life. That very afternoon, when Mary had tried to warn her cousin, Helen had gone to the factory apparently to bring Mary home, but in reality to see Burdon. She had been in his private office, perched on the edge of his desk and swinging her foot, when the same girl came in--the girl who had smiled and stared near the station. "All right, Fanny," said Burdon without looking around. "Leave the checks. I'll attend to them."