“Nor would I,” said Miss Gwynne, “if I had not known.” “You mean,” I said, “that he---- “I mean that you saw _my burglar_.” [Illustration: 5305] [Illustration: 0306] [Illustration: 0307] [Illustration: 0308] THE LADY IN ROUGE, By W. E. P. French [Illustration: 9308] “Pretty woman! That's just like a man. Pretty chromo, you mean, Tom.” “Well,” in a hearty, pleasant voice, “maybe you are the better judge; but I don't believe she's 'made up,' and if I wasn't the most henpecked man on earth I'd say she was the loveliest creature I ever saw. As for her hair, it's----” “Blondined! And so utterly impossible in color that it couldn't for a moment fool anybody but a man,” interrupted the first speaker, with deliciously spiteful emphasis on the very common noun man. “Eyebrows stencilled, eyelashes darkened; lips, ears and finger tips tinged with carmine--don't you know? Complexion enamel, vinegar rouge and brunette powder--pshaw! The way the men go on about her makes me positively ill. If you fall in love with her, Harry, you are no brother of mine. I don't care to be sister-in-law to a lithograph in _fast_ colors.” “You make me curious to see her, Nell, dear. By Jove, she must be either a monster or a paragon! Have the spirit of a man, Tom, and tell me which.” “Don't try to extract any more information from me, old man; my teeth are positively chattering with terror. You can decide for yourself this evening, if your ferocious sister will allow you to leave your room. By the way,” with an amused laugh, “what do you suppose Nell and the rest of her charitable sex up here have dubbed the poor girl? 'The lady in rouge!'” “Yes, and she ought to have a sign, 'Paint, don't touch.' I believe she is a divorcée or a widow, and I know she's thirty in spite of her sickening affectation of youth.” “Oh, come, Nell, you are absolutely vicious. She is not a day over twenty, and she has the prettiest name I ever heard, Violante Solander; accent on the second syllable, Harry, not on the first, to rhyme with Hollander, as the bride of my bosom insists on pronouncing it.” “Sounds like a combination of Spanish and Scandinavian,” the younger man answers. “It is,” returns his brother-in-law. “I have met her father several times at the Cosmos Club in Washington. He is a Norwegian, a wonderfully handsome man, of the purest blonde type, with charming old-time manners and a voice as deep and sonorous as a fine bell. Jack Kendricks, who knows him quite well, told me something of his history. As a young man he traveled pretty much all over the world, and in South America met and married Miss Viola's mother. She was an Ecuadorean of Spanish descent, and so beautiful that she was called, in reference to her name, which was the same as her daughter's, 'The Violet of Quito.' It is really a case of the Arctic zone wedding the Equator.”