"Miss Gaudette," he continued, "is downstairs in the parlor now entertaining a caller--some resurrected beau, I believe. Anyway, she left her overshoes outside my door to get when she comes up again, and I'm going to tie one end of this string to them and the other end to my wrist, so that when she picks up her shoes a few hours later it will wake me from my nap, and I can make one grand rush for the hall and--" "Propose then and there?" quizzed the Poet. "No, not exactly. But I'm going to ask her if she'll let me fall in love with her." The Poet sniffed palpably and left the room. But the Political Economist lay back in his chair and went to sleep with a great, pleasant expectancy in his heart. When he woke at last with a sharp, tugging pain at his wrist the room was utterly dark, and the little French clock had stopped aghast and clasped its hands at eleven. For a second he rubbed his eyes in perplexity. Then he jumped to his feet, fumbled across the room and opened the door to find Noreen staring with astonishment at the tied overshoes. "Oh, I wanted to speak to you," he began. Then his eyes focused in amazement on a perfectly huge bunch of violets which Noreen was clasping desperately in her arms. "Good Heavens!" he cried. "Is anybody dead?" But Noreen held the violets up like a bulwark and commenced to laugh across them. "He did propose," she said, "and I accepted him! Does it look as though I had chosen to be engaged with violets instead of a ring?" she suggested blithely. "It's only that I asked him if he would be apt to send me violets, and when he said: 'Yes, every week,' I just asked if I please couldn't have them all at once. There must be a Billion dollars' worth here. I'm going to have a tea-party to-morrow and invite the Much-Loved Girl." The conscious, childish malice of her words twisted her lips into an elfish smile. "It's Mr. Ernest Dextwood," she rattled on: "Ernest Dextwood, the Coffee Merchant. He's a widower now--with three children. Do--you--think--that--I--will--make--a--good--stepmother?" The violets began to quiver against her breast, but her chin went higher in rank defiance of the perplexing _something_ which she saw in the Political Economist's narrowing eyes. She began to quote with playful recklessness Byron's pert parody: "There is a tide in the affairs of women Which taken at its flood leads--God Knows Where." But when the Political Economist did not answer her, but only stared with brooding, troubled eyes, she caught her breath with a sudden terrifying illumination. "Ouch!" she said. "O-u-c-h!" and wilted instantly like a frost-bitten rose under heat. All the bravado, all the stamina, all the glint of her, vanished utterly.