"That's good, too," returned my new-found friend with a laugh as she again wrote a word or two on the nice white paper. Then she placed her elbow upon the table, leaned her very firm cheek on her hand, and regarded me with fine and honest and sympathetic eyes. "I wonder what America is going to do to a beautiful boy like you. I'm glad that you are going to beat it to the tall timbers of the Harpeth Valley. There are women in New York who would eat you up alive. There's La Frigeda, alias Maggie Sullivan from Milwaukee, over there devouring you with her eyes at this moment, and that pretty little Stuyvesant Blaine debutante hasn't taken her eyes off of you long enough to eat her spiced ice. I know 'em both and could land something from either one if I introduced you in your title and very beautiful clothes." "Oh, I beg a pardon of you that I have not the time to have an introduction to your friends," I exclaimed with a very true regret, because I did like that very nice woman and would have liked much to have brought advantage to her. "In less than an hour I must 'beat' to those 'tall timbers of Harpeth' you mention." "Speaking of the State of Harpeth, I don't know as you'll be so safe after all, young friend, if that is any sample of the variety of women that flower in that classic land of the cotton and the magnolia which I met at Mrs. Creed Payne's war baby tea the other afternoon," mused my fine friend as I paid the _garçon_ for the very good tea. "She is in high-up political circles down there in Old Harpeth and from the bunch of women she was with I make a guess she is taking an interest in war contracts. She was with that Mrs. Benton, who pulled off that spectacular deal for desiccated soups for Greece the other day. My stomach is too delicate to feed soldiers dried dog and rotten cabbage melted down into glue in a can, but they may like the idea if not the soup. Anyway, the woman was a beauty, so don't you let her get you." "I do not entirely understand you, my dear Madam, and I wish that I might have many days to talk with you about these American customs," I said as I put into my pocket the exchange money handed to me by the _garçon_. "Well, it is not exactly an American custom I have been putting you next to, and I guess I'm patriotically glad that you don't entirely understand. Now, I'm going to put you on the train for Old Harpeth and kiss you good-bye for your mother. I'm not trusting Frigeda, and she's lingering. Come on if your train leaves at six o'clock." And while she spoke, my interesting and fine woman rose and allowed me to assist her into her gray coat of tweed that was very like to mine. It was with regret that I parted from that lady at the door of the taxicab that had been called for her, and I bent over and kissed her hand, the first woman that Mr. Robert Carruthers had ever so saluted.