"Oh, I'm amusing myself," replied I; but I was reminded how weary I felt, and went away to bed. I neglected to close my sitting-room door, and as I was getting ready for bed in my dressing-room I couldn't help overhearing a scrap of talk between Cyrus and Mr. Gunton as they went along the hall on the way to their apartments. "The Tevises were disgusting--they showed their envy so plainly," Cyrus said. The Tevises are trying hard to do what we're doing in a social way, and though they must have even more money than the Burkes, they're failing at it. "They'll never get anywhere," Mr. Gunton replied. "You can't collect much of a crowd of nice people just to watch you spend money. You've got to give them a real show. There's where Miss Talltowers comes in." "She has wonderful taste and originality," said Cyrus. Cyrus! Mr. Gunton sat out most of the evening with Nadeshda. I suppose she was trying to make Cyrus jealous and also to create trouble between him and his uncle. I've not seen a franker flirtation even in Washington. Whenever I chanced to look at them, Mr. Gunton was talking earnestly, and she seemed to be hanging to his words like a thirsty bird to a water-pan. And her queer, subtle face was--well, it was beautiful, and gave me that sense of the wild and fierce and uncanny which makes her both fascinating and terrible. I think Mr. Gunton was infatuated--indeed, I know it. For when I spoke of her to him this morning his eyes seemed to blaze. He drew a long breath. "A wonder-woman!" he said. "I never saw anything like her--in the flesh." Then he looked a little sheepish, and added: "I mean it, but I laugh at myself, too. There are fools that don't know they're fools; then, there are fools that do know it and laugh at themselves as they plan fresh follies--it takes a pretty clever man, Miss Talltowers, to make a grand, supreme, rip-roaring ass of himself, doesn't it? At least, I hope so." And with that somewhat mysterious observation he left me abruptly. When I saw him and Nadeshda together so much at the ball I looked out for Cyrus. He seemed bored, and devoted himself to wallflowers, but on the whole was surprisingly unconcerned, apparently. I had him in sight almost the whole evening. Jim Lafollette, who stuck to my train like a Japanese poodle--I told him so, but he didn't take the hint--said that "the gawk," meaning Cyrus, was hanging round me. "He's moon-struck," said Jim. "So your little put-up job with Jessie seems to be doing nicely, thank you." I wonder why a man assumes that the fact that he loves a woman gives him the right to insult her and makes it his duty to do it. And I wonder why we women assent to that sort of impudence. There's another conventionality that ought to be stamped out.