From the hair, my meditative eye, still rather absently, I believe, descended her quite good figure to her boots. Thereupon, my gaze ceased to be absent. They were not boots. They were bronzed slippers with high heels and metal buckles and of a character so distinctive that I instantly knew they had once before been impressed upon my vision. Swiftly my mind identified them: they had been worn by the Klondike woman on the occasion of a dinner at the Grill, in conjunction with a gown to match and a bluish scarf--all combining to achieve an immense effect. My assistant hummed at her task, unconscious of my scrutiny. I recall that I coughed slightly before disclosing to her that my attention had been attracted to her slippers. She took the reference lightly, affecting, as the sex will, to belittle any prized possession in the face of masculine praise. “I have seen them before,” I ventured. “She gives me all of hers. I haven’t had to buy shoes since baby was born. She gives me--lots of things--stockings and things. She likes me to have them.” “I didn’t know you knew her.” “Years! I’m there once a week to give the house a good going over. That Jap of hers is the limit. Dust till you can’t rest. And when I clean he just grins.” I mused upon this. The woman was already giving half her time to superintending two assistants in the preparation of the International Relish. “Her work is too much in addition to your own,” I suggested. “Me? Work too hard? Not in a thousand years. I do all right for you, don’t I?” It was true; she was anything but a slacker. I more nearly approached my real objection. “A woman in your position,” I began, “can’t be too careful as to the associations she forms----” I had meant to go on, but found it quite absurdly impossible. My assistant set down the glass she had and quite venomously brandished her towel at me. “So that’s it?” she began, and almost could get no farther for mere sputtering. I mean to say, I had long recognized that she possessed character, but never had I suspected that she would have so inadequate a control of her temper. “So that’s it?” she sputtered again, “And I thought you were too decent to join in that talk about a woman just because she’s young and wears pretty clothes and likes to go out. I’m astonished at you, I really am. I thought you were more of a man!” She broke off, scowling at me most furiously. Feeling all at once rather a fool, I sought to conciliate her. “I have joined in no talk,” I said. “I merely suggested----” But she shut me off sharply. “And let me tell you one thing: I can pick out my associates in this town without any outside help. The idea! That girl is just as nice a person as ever walked the earth, and nobody ever said she wasn’t except those frumpy old cats that hate her good looks because the men all like her.” “Old cats!” I echoed, wishing to rebuke this violence of epithet, but she would have none of me.