“I think, Mr. Budd, that Mr. Fenton can give you the advice and counsel that I have so wofully failed to furnish you,” remarked Gertrude, after her callers were seated. “You see, Mr. Fenton takes the new woman seriously.” “Surely, Mr. Budd,” said John Fenton, “there is no great merit in that. We are obliged to, are we not?” “I am disappointed in you, Mr. Fenton,” exclaimed Gertrude. “I thought you did it willingly, and now you hint at compulsion.” Buchanan Budd grasped the opportunity for a flank movement. “You have thrown yourself open to suspicion, Mr. Fenton. I fear your counsel and advice to one who is very glad to welcome woman to new privileges would not be as valuable as I had hoped it would be.” Fenton saw that he had placed himself at a disadvantage. “You both do me an injustice,” he explained. “Although there may be, as I have said, no possibility of retreat, we men still take pleasure in advancing with women, rather than against them.” Budd saw at once that his opponent was a strategist worthy of his own Napoleonic skill. “You see,” said Budd, gazing earnestly at Gertrude, “that you find all men ready to capitulate. The burden now lies on your own shoulders. It is for you to direct your allies in the line that they should take.” Gertrude smiled in apparent amusement; but she had a painful consciousness that her hand would tremble perceptibly if she held it out straight before her. “It seems,” she remarked, looking at Fenton, “that everything has been turned around. As a guide and adviser to men, I fear that woman is not yet quite up in her part.” “As my friend Richard Stoughton,--you met him at the musicale last evening, Miss Van Vleck,--as Stoughton puts it, woman has evoluted into a mentor from a tormentor,” remarked Fenton, proving that he was no longer a young man, by quoting the witticism of a friend and giving credit to the author. “I have been told that Mr. Stoughton is clever,” remarked Gertrude. “He is on a newspaper, is he not?” A slight flush mounted to Fenton’s cheek. “Yes,” he answered, looking at Budd steadily; “he is one of my colleagues on the _Trumpet_.” “Ah,” commented Budd, with what he doubtless considered an effectively Napoleonic drawl, “you are--ah--in journalism, Mr. Fenton?” There was nothing offensive in the words themselves, but the speaker’s tone implied that he considered journalism a line of endeavor that was not recognized in his set. Gertrude Van Vleck understood the veiled sneer in his voice, and her eyes shone mischievously as she cast a rapid glance at Fenton, and then said to Budd,-- “It seems to me, and I know so many women who agree with me, that journalism is, above all others, the appropriate profession for a man of intellect in these days.” So far as good form permitted it to express any emotion, Buchanan Budd’s face wore a look of surprise as she uttered these words. Fenton smiled slightly, and said,--