Then Simon conceived a tremendous _coup de coeur_, a daring one enough, as women go,--women of such stuff as the Sally Wimples of this world are made of. He said, "I will try the old trick, the foolish old trick that I always despised, but which must have something sound in it, after all, since it has served the turn, through all time, of people in my predicament." So Simon went over (not with his heart,--trust him!--but with his legs) to Adelaide Splurge. Miss Wimple, never guessing, saw him go, and made no sign, though her heart fairly cracked: "He will return one day," she thought; "if it be too late then, so much the better for him, perhaps." Of Adelaide, the town had begun, some time since, to say, that she had tired of Philip Withers,--that she did not appreciate him, could not understand him,--he was too deep for her. Foolish town! She had only found him out, and learned to hate him as fiercely as she despised him unutterably. She had truly loved the man, and her shrewd heart had played the detective for his Madeline secret. For such a Fouché a slighter clue would have sufficed to lead to the conviction of so besotted a traitor, than many an incautious hint of his, and many a tale-telling vaunt of his irresistible egotism, afforded her; for, like all the weak wretches of his sort, there was not a more bungling lout, to try the patience of a clever man, than Philip Withers, when his game lay between his safety and his vanity. To Adelaide's hand Simon Blount came timely and well-trained. At once she set him on Withers, as one would hie on a good dog at a thief; and it was not long before she had the pleasure of seeing the chase brought to the ground. Withers had heard of a graceful neck, and white, dimpled shoulders, at the Athenæum; so accomplished a connoisseur as he must not let them pass unappreciated. So he hastened to discharge his duty to æsthetic society by honoring them with his admiration and exalting patronage. On any transparent pretext,--the more transparent the better, he thought, for the proprietress of the white shoulders and the bewitching shape, who "no doubt understood,"--he dropped in often at the little bookstore, to begin with a "how-do?" and conclude with an "_au revoir_,"--the ineffable puppy! upon whose vicious vanity the cold, still, statuesque scorn of Miss Wimple was grandly lost. At last, at the Splurge house one evening, in the presence of Adelaide and Simon, he was betrayed by his egotism into boasting, by insinuation, of certain successes at the Circulating Library most damaging to Miss Wimple's reputation for understanding and good taste; he was "in her books," he said. An accordant glance passed between Adelaide and Simon. When Withers retired, Simon followed him, and under Adelaide's window, and under her eyes, he boxed the ears of Philip, the Debonair. After that, Mr. Withers was discreeter.