“He certainly has an extremely attractive face, Harriet,” remarked Gertrude Van Vleck, looking at Mrs. Percy-Bartlett amusedly; “but isn’t he very young?” “Perhaps he is in one sense,” assented the elder woman, striking a few chords on the piano impatiently. “But he’s exactly my age--and I’m very old.” Gertrude laughed and settled herself comfortably in an easy-chair for a confidential chat with her bosom friend. It was early in the afternoon of a brilliant winter day, and the music-room of the Percy-Bartletts’ house was a very cosey little confessional at the moment. “I wish I could like men somewhere near my own age,” mused Gertrude, her eyes still resting thoughtfully on her companion’s rather disturbed face. “But I can’t; there really seems to be something fatally wrong in my inclinations and disinclinations. There is something authoritative about a man of forty that pleases me. But in our set the men at forty are either married impossibilities or confirmed bachelors.” Mrs. Percy-Bartlett laughed merrily. “How we do crave contrasts,” she exclaimed. “You are suffering from too much attention from boys just out of college, and I--well, I’m married to a man nearly forty.” “After all, Harriet, I don’t believe that age has so much to do with it as we seem to imply.” Gertrude clasped her hands around her knee as she sat leaning forward, and looked up at her friend earnestly. “There is one thing that the new movement among the women of our class has done. It has tended to weary us of men who are all cut on one pattern. Take any given subject of any importance and ask one of the men of our set what he thinks about it. Dear little parrot, he will repeat to you the general verdict of his club on the question at issue, without the slightest suspicion that he is a mental marionette.” “That is very true,” assented Mrs. Percy-Bartlett. “Perhaps that fact may explain to you why I enjoy talking to Richard Stoughton.” “Oh,” cried Gertrude, her face displaying an animation that it seldom exhibited in public. “Then he is not yet spoiled by the churning process? He certainly carries himself like other society men of his age. His face is brighter than the average youngster’s, but another season will change all that.” Mrs. Percy-Bartlett swung around on the music-stool and looked earnestly into Gertrude’s face. “He’s not a society man, my dear girl. He _could_ have the _entrée_ if he wanted it. His people are very prominent in Connecticut, and he was in the best set at Yale. But, do you know, although he has plenty of money, he is quite ambitious in a very queer line.” “Yes?” questioned Gertrude, curious regarding her friend’s feelings toward Richard.