"You are afraid of yourself, John," replied his wife kindly. "You do not realize that now you are smart enough and rich enough to be a fool without hurting your position in the world. Hethy Hopper thinks the book will be very clever, and by getting it out under both our names we will demonstrate to the world how versified, I mean volatile, we are." "Clever--awfully clever," said Lord Algernon rising and wandering, apparently aimlessly, to the table, where Mignonette Klapper was knitting her brow over a puzzle of cards. "Sally is clever," said Pearl Veal quietly to me. "What a woman she is! She has been poor and rich. She was common and became a Knickerbocker and then smart. Now she is clever, and when she wearies of that she will settle down and be good. She thinks she has never been good, and it would hurt her dreadfully to be disillusioned." A spindly French chair creaked as the Guardsman sat down beside Mignonette. "Captain, you have not heard all of the chapter," cried Mrs. Radigan sweetly from the divan, where she sat enthroned amid cushions. The Guardsman was strangely deaf. He seemed to become strangely talkative, too, for we heard Mignonette laugh and say, "Oh, your Lordship is too flattering." He did say "Aw," but he added something to it, very much to it, indeed, and when he had finished I noticed that she was blushing delightfully and smiling. Poor Mrs. Radigan! The soldier's broad back was toward her, but she could see the two heads together and hear Miss Klapper's musical laugh and the Englishman's joyous "Aw." For a moment she stared at them in amazement; then gathered up the scattered pages of "The Calf Worshippers," arose and exclaimed, "Come girls, it's high time to dress for dinner. I see Carrie and Hethy just coming in." "Jolly girl, Miss Klapper?" said Lord Algernon to me as we were going upstairs together toward the bachelor quarter of the house. "From the West," said I. "Are all your Western girls beautiful?" inquired he gravely. "All that are asked to visit in the East are," I answered. "Or else rich. The others marry at home." "Miss Klapper is, of course, rich?" said his Lordship in an offhand way as he polished his monocle. "Milwaukee," said I. "Klapper's Extra Pale." "Aw," said he cheerfully. "But she has no family." I thought it best just to tell him that. "Family?" said he in a puzzled way. "Do you have them in America?" "One or two," said I. "But they are nearly all buried now." The Guardsman paused at his own door. "She is certainly stunning," he mused. "Lovely face; charming figure; eyes fairly crackle; and clever, very clever. You say she comes from Klapper's Extra Pale? Aw." He softly closed the door.