Bromley shook his head again. “I shall feel like a cad doing it, but she shan’t lack for introductions, Phil; I’ll promise you that. Want to go around to the Windsor with me after dinner and meet them?” Philip’s laugh was a bray. “And let you start the introductions with me? Thanks, I wouldn’t be that unkind to you,” he bantered. “Let’s talk about something pleasant,” Bromley broke in whimsically; “our friends from Mississippi, for example. You remember the little rescue plan we were talking about last week?” “I remember telling you that it wouldn’t work.” “But it has worked--like a charm. I bought the West Denver cottage Saturday: you know the neighborhood--respectable and neat, but not gaudy--short walk across the Curtis Street bridge to the University School for the girls--short walk to business for the dear little hat-trimmer. After I’d got the deed safely in my pocket, I called upon Mrs. Dabney and told her what I had ‘found.’ She wept tears of joy.” “I don’t know how you do it,” said Philip discontentedly. “As many times as I have been with Jean since I took her to dinner that first evening, she has never let me see the inside of their rooms in the Whittle Block.” The play-boy laughed. “You know the saying about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread. I got my foot in the door the first time I walked home with her--the day you went to Boulder. The younger girls took to me and called me ‘Uncle Harry’; and after that it was easy.” “Still, I don’t see how you got Mrs. Dabney’s consent to fall in with your cottage scheme. I tried to offer Jean a loan, and she froze me so quick----” “Of course she would. That was what you might call the heavy-hand method. I had to tell a few white lies about the cottage, but that was all in the day’s work. A mining friend of mine was moving his family to the Gunnison country and was willing to let his furnished house cheap to the right kind of tenants. Past that, all that was needed was to make the rent fit the Dabney purse.” “But you haven’t fooled Jean with any such cock-and-bull story as that.” “Haven’t I? That remains to be seen. Anyway, they are taking possession to-morrow, and I’m to help them. You are not in it; not in one side of it.” “Evidently,” was the morose agreement. Then: “As I said before, I’d like to know how you do it, Harry. You can get closer to people in ten minutes than I can in a year. The first evening we were together with Jean I could see that she accepted you that quick,”--with a snap of his finger. “And she knew what you are--or rather what you were a year ago. Don’t women, good women, care whether or not a man makes a consummate fool of himself?”