He put his arm around her, and would have drawn her to him, but with a firm, gentle touch, the meaning of which was unmistakable, she pushed his arm aside, and, rising, stood before him. The faint trace of tears still marked her eyes, and her voice was a trifle unsteady. "Mr. Allison, we cannot be even friends! We just cannot! You are a 'man atom of the great iniquity.'" She crossed the room, and, raising a shade, stood looking absently into the moonlight. Gilbert Allison leaned forward and seemed trying to obtain the solution of some mystery from the outlines of her figure. She still stood there when Judge Thorn entered from an adjoining room, and while he conversed with her liquor-dealer lover, Jean left the room to return no more that night. But Mr. Allison was not thus to be disposed of. A few evenings passed, and he was again announced a visitor at the Thorn home, and Jean appeared really very glad to see him, considering that they were never to be friends. After a few moments of casual conversation he took from his pocket an evening paper, folded so that she could not miss the reading, and held it before her eyes. From the item thus displayed she learned that Gilbert Allison, late of the firm of Allison, Russell & Joy, had withdrawn his interest in the firm to be placed in other investments. The conversation that followed the reading of this announcement, while confidential, was not a long one, but at its close Gilbert Allison knew more of that firmness born of a woman's conviction than he had ever dreamed. * * * * * Judge Thorn looked comfortable in his leather chair, his slippered feet on a hassock and a new book in his hand. At any rate, Jean thought so, as she studied him from between the parted curtains, but she was relentless. Stealing softly behind him, she pressed her hands over his eyes. The judge started, and the young lady laughed merrily. Then she tried to steal away his book, but he held it. "Let me put it up, father, I want to talk to you." The judge still held the book. "Then I will say 'please.'" "Is it to be a political conversation?" he asked, gravely. "Not a breath of politics about it," she answered. "Any statistics to be brought in?" he questioned further. Jean laughed again. "Really, father," she said, "I think I may hope to win you yet. When a judge, and a Republican at that, finds it hard to vindicate his party's doings, and finds statistics overwhelmingly against his party's policy on moral questions, he will look for better things in better places. At this period of his political transmigration I believe a man is more to be pitied for misplaced confidence than blamed for tardy understanding. No, father, not a statistic to-night, unless you compel me to bring them out in self-defense." Judge Thorn slowly released his book.