“Ida,” said Ruby, shaking her wise red head, “don’t you go leaving your husband summers, like the rest. Men don’t get much chance to go to Europe. They prefer little old New York, anyhow--when they get on there alone. I wonder what ten thousand wives that go to Europe every summer think their husbands are doin’? I haven’t manicured men for nine years without knowin’ they need watchin’ every minute. Why, my lord! they’re so tickled to death when summer comes round they can hardly wait to kiss their wives good-bye and try to look lonesome on the platform. They’d like to be down and kick up their heels right there at the station. And I didn’t have to come to Butte to find that out.” “Greg’ll never run with that fast lot.” “No, but he might meet an affinity; and there’s one of _them_ lyin’ in wait for every man.” Ida’s brow darkened. “Well, just let her look out for herself, that’s all. I’ll hang on to Greg. But it ain’t time to worry yet. Let’s have a game of poker.” VI Gregory, through the offices of his friend, Mark Blake, found a teacher for Ida before the end of the week, Mr. William Cullen Whalen, Professor of English in the Butte High School. Mr. Whalen’s present status was what he was in the habit of designating as an ignominious anti-climax, considering his antecedents and attainments; but he always dismissed the subject with a vague, “Health--health--this altitude--this wonderful air--climate--not for me are the terrible extremes of our Atlantic seaboard. Here a man may be permitted to live, if not in the deeper sense--well, at least, there are always one’s thoughts--and books.” He was a delicate little man as a matter of fact, but had East winds and summer humidities been negligible he would have jumped at the position found for him by a college friend who had gone West and prospered in Montana. This friend’s letter had much to say about the dry tonic air of winter, the cool light air of summer, the many hours he would be able to pass in the open, thus deepening the colour of his corpuscles, at present a depressing shade of pink; but even more about a salary far in excess of anything lying round loose in the East. Mr. Whalen, who, since his graduation from the college in his native town, had knocked upon several historic portals of learning in vain, finding himself invariably outclassed, had shuddered, but accepted his fate by the outgoing mail. Of course he despised the West; and the mere thought of a mining camp like Butte, which was probably in a drunken uproar all the time, almost nauseated him. However, in such an outpost the graduate of an Eastern college who knew how to wear his clothes must rank high above his colleagues. It might be years before he could play a similar rôle at home. So he packed his wardrobe, which included spats and a silk hat, and went.