That, it seemed, had been at the Settlement, to which Miss Blair had retired after some trying situations as a model. Stenography being taught at the Settlement, she had taken it up on hearing of several authenticated cases of girls who had gone into offices and married millionaires. The discouraging side presented itself later in the many more cases of girls who had not been so successful. It was in this interval of depression on the part of Miss Blair that Mildred Averill had appeared at the Settlement with all sorts of anxious plans about doing good, "If she wants to do good to any one, let her do it to me," Miss Blair had said to her intimates. "I’m all ready to be adopted by any old maid that’s got the wad." That, she explained to me, was not the language she habitually used. It was mere pleasantry between girls, and not up to the standard of a really high-class adventuress. Moreover, Miss Averill was not an old maid, seeing she was but twenty-five, though she got herself up like forty. All the same, Miss Averill having come on the scene and having taken a fancy to Miss Blair, Miss Blair had decided to use Miss Averill for her own malignant purposes. For by this time the seeming stenographer had chosen her career. A sufficient course of reading had made it clear that of all the women in the world the adventuress had the best of it. She went to the smartest dressmakers; she stayed at the dearest hotels; her jewels and furs rivaled those of duchesses; her life was the perpetual third act of a play. Furthermore, Miss Blair had yet to hear of an adventuress who didn’t end in money, marriage, and respectability. Having been so frank about herself, I could hardly be surprised when she became equally so about me. As the wind rose she slipped into a protected angle, where I had no choice but to follow her. She began her attack after propping herself in the corner, her hands deep in her pockets, and her pretty shoulders hunched. "You’re a funny man. Do you know it?" Though inwardly aghast, I strove to conceal my agitation. "Funny in what way?" "Oh, every way. Any one would think—" "What would any one think?" I insisted, nervously, when she paused. "Oh, well! I sha’n’t say." "Because you’re afraid to hurt my feelings?" "I’m a good sort—especially among people of our own class. For the others"—she shrugged her shoulders charmingly—"I’m an anarchist and a socialist and all that. I don’t care who I bring down, if they’re up. But when people are down already—I’m—I’m a friend." As there was a measure of invitation in these words I nerved myself to approach the personal. "Are you friend enough to tell me why you thought you had seen me in Salt Lake City?" She nodded. "Sure; because I did think so—there—or somewhere." "Then you couldn’t swear to the place?"