“How ridiculous!” she exclaimed impatiently. “Does the fact of my having expressed an opinion, necessitate there being anyone in particular? And why should you immediately suggest Paul Bronlee? No,” and she shook her head sagely, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Dad, but I shall never marry Paul Bronlee even if he is one of ‘the’ Bronlees and so desirable in your own and mother’s eyes. He bores me to death. In a year’s time, I should be obliged to divorce him. But why discuss anything so silly? Here we are home at last and I’m dead tired.” Her father walked with her to the foot of the stairs and kissed her gently. “Hurry up into slumber-land; I’m going to have another cigar. We can talk about your marriage another time. I don’t want to think of losing my girl yet, nor must she think of leaving. Good-night, dear.” “Good-night, Dad,” she replied as she returned his caress perfunctorily, anxious to hurry away, to be alone. Elinor Benton closed her door softly, though her impulse was to slam it. She flung her opera coat at a couch across the room and kicked a silver slipper into another. She stamped the still shod foot. “Paul Bronlee, indeed!” she muttered. She crossed over to her escritoire and from a locked drawer took out an autographed photograph of Templeton Druid. Her heart leapt as she gazed at it. Ah, there was a man! And he loved her! She held the pictured likeness to her lips, then held it at arm’s length as she half whispered: “And they would talk to me about Paul Bronlee when I have you, dear heart! But never fear—I’ll show them I have a mind of my own. Looks as if I was going to have trouble with dad, too, but we’ll both show them. Marry first and tell them after—that’s the idea.” Tenderly as though the pictured likeness were a living entity, she placed it back in its drawer which she carefully locked. Then she turned to ring for her maid. When Marie’s soft knock came on the door, Elinor Benton was lounging in a deep easy chair, her fair head nodding, but her thoughts wide awake, her mind filled with the image of one man.