It was now some time since she had enjoyed the admiration of any man but her husband, and his grew more and more sporadic, was long since dry of novelty. Like most Western husbands, he would not have permitted her to make a friend of any other man, nor even to receive the casual admirer when he was not at home. Ida was full of vanity, although she would have expressed her sudden determination to captivate “little Whalen” merely as a desire to keep her hand in. He was the only man upon whom she was likely to practise at present (for Gregory would have none of the Club dances), and vanity can thirst like a galled palate. She had “sized him up” as a “squirt” (poor Ida! little she recked how soon she was to be stripped of her picturesque vocabulary), but he was “a long sight better than nothing.” After they had exhausted the nipping weather, and the possibility of a Chinook arriving before night--there was a humming roar high overheard at the moment--she lowered her black eyelashes, lifted herself against the stiff back of her chair with the motion of a snake uncoiling, raised her thick white lids suddenly, and murmured: “Well, so you’re goin’ to polish me off? Tell me all my faults! Fire away. I know you’ll make a grand success of it. Lord knows (her voice became as sweet as honey), you’re different enough from the other men in this jay town.” Mr. Whalen felt as if he were being drenched with honey dew, for he was the type of man whom women take no trouble to educate. But as that sweet unmodulated voice stole about his ear porches he drew himself up stiffly, conscious of a thrill of fear. To become enamoured of the wife of one of these forthright Westerners, who took the law into their own hands, was no part of his gentle programme; but he stared at her fascinated, never having felt anything resembling a thrill before. Moreover, like all people of weak passions, more particularly that type of American that hasn’t any, he took pride in his powers of self-control. In a moment he threw off the baleful influence and replied drily. “I think the lessons would better be oral for a time. Do--do I understand that I am to correct your individual method of expression?” “That’s it, I guess.” “And you won’t be offended?” Mr. Whalen’s upper teeth were hemispheric, but he had cultivated a paternal and not unpleasing smile. Even the pale blue orbs, fixed defiantly upon the siren, warmed a trifle. “Well. I don’t s’pose I’ll like bein’ corrected better’n the next, but that’s what I’m payin’ for. Now that my husband’s studyin’ for a profession, I guess I’ll be in the top set before so very long. There’s Mrs. Blake, for instance--her husband told Mr. Compton she’d call this week. Is she all that she’s cracked up to be?”