Ethel held her breath and remained transfixed. Again the knock came and the question was repeated. But she made no answer, and presently, when the sound of footsteps died away, she got up--a little peevish and more than a little irritable--kicked a small pile of cigarette ash which the boy had dropped upon her carpet, and said to herself: "_Just_ as he was going to kiss me! Goodness, how _annoying_ father is!" X The following morning Belle took Nicholas Kenyon for a walk. Dressed in a suit of blue flannel with white bone buttons, with a pair of white spats gleaming over patent leather shoes and a grey hat stuck at an angle of forty-five, Kenyon looked as fresh and as dapper as though he had been to bed the night before at ten o'clock. He had, as a matter of fact, come home with the milk; but he was one of those men who possess the enviable gift of looking healthy and untired after the sort of nights which make the ordinary man turn to chemistry and vibro-massage. Belle had sported a new hat for the occasion. This fact Kenyon realized with that queer touch of intuition which was characteristic of him. "By Jove!" he said. "That's something like a hat, Belle. Hearty congratulations. You suit it to perfection." Belle beamed upon him. "But you would say that anyhow, wouldn't you?" "Perfectly true; but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I shouldn't mean it." They turned into Madison Avenue. It was an exquisite morning. The whole city was bathed in sun, but the refreshing tang of late autumn was in the air. Most of the large houses were still closed, their owners lingering in the country or abroad. All the same there was the inevitable amount of traffic in the streets and apparently the usual number of passers-by. The city can be--according to the strange little creatures who write society news--"utterly deserted" and yet contain all its teeming millions. "And what may that be?" asked Kenyon, pointing to the heavy white buttresses of a church which backed on the street. "Oh, that's the Roman Catholic Cathedral." "Roman Catholic, eh? I noticed churches everywhere as we drove up from the docks,--more churches than pubs apparently, and yet I suppose it would be quite absurd to imagine that New Yorkers imbibe their alcohol entirely in the form of religion." "Quite," said Belle, dryly. "Although we have a hundred religions and only five cocktails." "I see you also go in for antique furniture." Belle laughed. "You have a quick eye," she said. "There's so much genuine Old English stuff in this city that if it were sent to England there wouldn't be room for it on shore. Tell me; what are your plans?" "Well," said Kenyon, "I'm going to accept your father's perfectly charming hospitality for a fortnight and then take rooms in a bachelor apartment-house, of which Graham has told me, for the winter." "You're going to settle down here?" cried Belle.