counter-irritant to Mary McLane, and he became a professional diner-out. “Do you think he’ll condescend to tutor?” Gregory had asked of Blake. Whalen was by no means unknown to him, but heretofore had been regarded as a mere worm. “Sure thing. Nobody keener on the dollar than Whalen. He’ll stick you, but he knows his business. He’s got all the words there are, puts ’em in the right place, and tones ’em up so you’d hardly know them.” VII Ida was out when her prospective tutor called, and she was deeply impressed by the card she found under the door: “Mr. William Cullen Whalen,” it was inscribed. It was the custom of the gentlemen of her acquaintance to express their sense of good fellowship even upon the formal pasteboard. “Mr. Matt Dance,” “Mr. Phil Mott,” “Mr. Bill Jarvis,” the legends read. Ida felt as if she were reciting a line from the Eastern creed as her lips formed again and again the suave and labial syllables on her visitor’s card. She promptly determined to order cards for her husband on the morrow--he was so remiss as to have none--and they should be engraved, in small Roman letters: “Mr. Gregory Verrooy Compton.” “And believe me,” she announced to her green dining-room, as she sat down before her husband’s desk, “that is some name.” Her note to Professor Whalen, asking him to call on the following afternoon at two o’clock, was commendably brief, so impatient was she to arrive at the signature, “Mrs. Gregory Verrooy Compton;” little conceiving the effect it would have upon Mr. Whalen’s fastidious spine. He called at the hour named, and Ida invited him into the dining-room. It was here that Gregory read far into the night, and she vaguely associated a large table with much erudition. Moreover, she prided herself upon her economy in fuel. Mr. Whalen sat in one of the hard, upright chairs, his stick across his knee, his gloves laid smartly in the rolling brim of his hat, studying this new specimen and wondering if she could be made to do him credit. He was surprised to find her so beautiful, and not unrefined in style--if only she possessed the acumen to keep her ripe mouth shut. In fact he found her quite the prettiest woman he had seen in Butte, famous for pretty women; and--and--he searched conscientiously for the right word, and blushed as he found it--the most seductive. Ida was vain of the fact that she wore no corset, and that not the least of her attractions was a waist as flexible as an acrobat’s. What flesh she had was very firm, her carriage was easy and graceful, the muscles of her back were strong, her lines long and flowing; she walked and moved at all times with an undulating movement usually associated with a warmer temperament. But nature often amuses herself bestowing the semblance and withholding the essence; Ida, calculating and contemptuous of the facile passions of men, amused herself with them, confident of her own immunity.