"You would be willing to risk it?" Stephanie ceased playing with her braid, and leaning forward took a cigarette from the case on the table. "Yes, I should be willing to risk it," she replied,--"if he were to ask me--and Lorraine were out of the way." "I think," said Gladys, laying aside the mirror and drawing her slender feet up under her, "I think he will ask you, if Lorraine gets out of the way in a reasonable time. But you mustn't expect him to wait forever--a man is a fickle beast at best, you know." "Beast is an appropriate term for most men!" Stephanie exclaimed.--"But it doesn't apply to Montague." "Possibly it doesn't--you never can tell, however, until you've lived with a man and tried him." "Montague is a _dear_!" Stephanie declared. "Of course he is a dear, a perfect dear," her friend agreed--"and you are not taking much of a chance, but there is a chance." "_He_ would be taking an infinitely greater chance," said Stephanie. "He would be taking no chance whatever." "With my past?" "Your past is what warrants you--you have been tried in the fire and all the dross fused out of you. I would rather trust you _now_ than--myself." "You think that all the bad is out?" "I do, indeed!" "I wish I were so sure of it," Stephanie mused. Gladys laughed softly. "You _are_ sure of it, dear. Montague Pendleton himself couldn't drag you out of the straight and narrow--and that even though you were to love him madly." She got up and going over perched herself on the other's chair-arm. "Forget the past--your friends have forgotten it. Be thankful that it _is_ the past--and that once more the sun is shining. You have those who are devoted to you, and you have--Montague." Stephanie drew the other down and kissed her. "_Maybe_ I have him!" she smiled. "You said that I have him for a reasonable time--that man is a fickle beast at best." "The reasonable time varies with the man!" Gladys smiled back. "With Montague Pendleton it is likely to be forever. He loved you, I think, before your marriage--he loves you still. Isn't that an assurance of the future?--Now let us get back to the Porshinger matter. I didn't telephone--I wanted to discuss the invitation with you. I know that Mrs. Woodside is absent and he's simply down with Woodside, so we could ask him well enough. And, on the whole, I think it would not be a bad scheme. You're afraid of him for Montague, as well as for yourself. He is a climber, with enormous wealth and power--and he's coming over the wall, so why not assist him? He will be grateful and it may cause him to relent. He will know that if he injures Montague he will injure his chances for Society. Moreover, the sooner we start to draw his fangs the better it will be for you two."