"All the time I am gone," she grinned, "pray over and over, 'Lead Noreen not into temptation.'" Her voice broke suddenly into wistful laughter: "Why to meet again a man who used to love you--it's like offering store-credit to a pauper." Then she slammed the door behind her and started downstairs for the bleak, plush parlor, with a chaotic sense of absurdity and bravado. But when she reached the middle of the bachelor stairway and looked down casually and spied her clumsy arctics butting out from her wet-edged skirt all her nervousness focused instantly in her shaking knees, and she collapsed abruptly on the friendly dark stair and clutching hold of the banister, began to whimper. In the midst of her stifled tears a door banged hard above her, the floor creaked under a sturdy step, and the tall, narrow form of the Political Economist silhouetted itself against the feeble light of the upper landing. One step down he came into the darkness--two steps, three steps, four, until at last in choking miserable embarrassment, Noreen cried out hysterically: "Don't step on me--I'm _crying_!" With a gasp of astonishment the young man struck a sputtering match and bent down waving it before him. "Why, it's _you_, Miss Gaudette," he exclaimed with relief. "What's the matter? Are you ill? What are you crying about?" and he dropped down beside her and commenced to fan her frantically with his hat. "What _are_ you crying about?" he persisted helplessly, drugged man-like, by the same embarrassment that mounted like wine to the woman's brain. Noreen began to laugh snuffingly. "I'm not crying about anything special," she acknowledged. "I'm just crying. I'm crying partly because I'm tired--and partly because I've got my overshoes on--but _mostly_"--her voice began to catch again--"but mostly--because there's a _man_ waiting to see me in the parlor." The Political Economist shifted uneasily in his rain coat and stared into Noreen's eyes. "Great Heavens!" he stammered. "Do you always cry when men come to see you? Is that why you never invited _me_ to call?" Noreen shook her head. "I never have men come to see me," she answered quite simply. "I go to see _them_. I study in their studios. I work on their newspapers. I caricature their enemies. Oh, it isn't _men_ that I'm afraid of," she added blithely, "but _this_ is something particular. _This_ is something really very funny. Did you ever make a wish that something perfectly preposterous would happen?" "Oh, yes," said the Political Economist reassuringly. "This very day I said that I wished my Stenographer would swallow the telephone." "But she didn't swallow it, did she?" persisted Noreen triumphantly. "Now I said that I wished some one would swallow the telephone and she _did_ swallow it!"