“No.” He had not spared himself. He couldn’t spare Dan. The lady’s manner seemed to say: “_I_ don’t care a little bit.” Anyhow, the evening in question had passed innocently, if frivolously, enough. No harm would come to Dan in consequence. And again Bob’s interest floated elsewhere. He noticed Miss Gwendoline did not seem exactly averse to letting that fellow by her side gaze into her eyes. Confound the fellow! He had one of those open honest faces. A likable chap, too! One of the Olympian-game brand! A weight-putter, or hammer-thrower, or something of the kind. Bob could have heaved considerable of a sledge himself at that moment. “Of course, boys will be boys,” prattled Mrs. Dan at his side, just in the least stridently. “I suppose you sat down and they just happened along and sat down, too! You couldn’t very well refuse to let them, could you? That wouldn’t have been very polite?” She hardly knew what she was saying herself now. Though a conversational general, on most occasions, her inward emotion was now running apace. It was almost beating her judgment in the race. She tried to pull herself together. “Why, in Paris, doing the sights at the Jardin or the Moulin Rouge, or the Casino de Paris, every one takes it or them—these chance acquaintances—as a matter of course. _Pour passer le temps!_ And why not?” With a shrug and in her sprightliest manner. “So the ladies in this instance, as you were saying, came right up, too, and—?” She paused. That was crude—clumsy—even though she rattled it off as if without thinking. She was losing all her finesse. But again, to her surprise, the fish took the bait. She did not know Bob’s predicament—that _he_ couldn’t finesse. “Yes, they came up,” said Bob reluctantly, though pleased that Mrs. Dan appeared such a good kind of fellow. “Show-girls?” asked the lady quickly. “Well—ah!—two of them were.” “Two? And what were the others?” Bob again regarded the lady apprehensively, but her expression was eminently reassuring. It went with the music, the bright flowers and the rest of the gay scene. Mrs. Dan’s smile was one of unadulterated enjoyment; she didn’t seem displeased at all. Must be she wasn’t displeased! Perhaps she was like some of those model French wives who aren’t averse at all to having other ladies attentive to their husbands? Mrs. Dan had lived in Paris and might have acquired with a real accent an accompanying broad-mindedness of character. That might be what made the dear old commodore act so happy most of the time, and so juvenile, too! Mrs. Dan _looked_ broad-minded. She had a broad face and her figure was broad—very! At the moment she seemed fairly to radiate broad-mindedness and again Bob felt glad—on the commodore’s account. He had nothing to feel glad about, himself, with that confounded hammer-thrower— “Who were the others, did you say?” repeated Mrs. Dan, in her most broad-minded tone.