“Miss De Voe has received Mr. Stirling’s message and will be pleased to see him in regard to the check, at half after eleven to-day (Wednesday) if he will call upon her. “Miss De Voe regrets the necessity of giving Mr. Stirling such brief notice, but she leaves New York on Thursday.” As Peter walked up town that morning, he was a little surprised that he was so cool over his intended call. In a few minutes he would be in the presence of a lady, the firmness of whose handwriting indicated that she was not yet decrepit. Three years ago such a prospect would have been replete with terror to him. Down to that—that week at the Pierce’s, he had never gone to a place where he expected to “encounter” (for that was the word he formerly used) women without dread. Since that week—except for the twenty-four hours of the wedding, he had not “encountered” a lady. Yet here he was, going to meet an entire stranger without any conscious embarrassment or suffering. He was even in a sense curious. Peter was not given to self-analysis, but the change was too marked a one for him to be unconscious of it. Was it merely the poise of added years? Was it that he had ceased to care what women thought of him? Or was it that his discovery that a girl was lovable had made the sex less terrible to him? Such were the questions he asked himself as he walked, and he had not answered them when he rang the bell of the old-fashioned, double house on Second Avenue. He was shown into a large drawing-room, the fittings of which were still shrouded in summer coverings, preventing Peter from inferring much, even if he had had time to do so. But the butler had scarcely left him when, with a well-bred promptness from which Peter might have drawn an inference, the rustle of a woman’s draperies was heard. Rising, Peter found himself facing a tall, rather slender woman of between thirty-five and forty. It did not need a second glance from even Peter’s untrained eye, to realize the suggestion of breeding in the whole atmosphere about her. The gown was of the simplest summer material, but its very simplicity, and a certain lack of “latest fashion” rather than “old-fashionedness” gave it a quality of respectability. Every line of the face, the set of the head, and even more the carriage of the figure, conveyed the “look of race.” “I must thank you, Mr. Stirling,” she said, speaking deliberately, in a low, mellow voice, by no means so common then as our women’s imitation of the English tone and inflexion has since made it, “for suiting your time to mine on such short notice.” “You were very kind,” said Peter, “to comply with my request. Any time was convenient to me.” “I am glad it suited you.” Peter had expected to be asked to sit down, but, nothing being said, began his explanation.