“Too busy to dine with Alice Harrington when you’ve the opportunity?” Monty exclaimed. “Are you a woman-hater?” A more observant man might have noted the sudden change in expression that the name Harrington produced in Steven Denby. He had previously been bored at the idea of meeting a woman who he concluded would be eager to impart her guide-book knowledge. Alice evidently had meant nothing to him, but Alice Harrington roused a sudden interest. “Not by any chance Mrs. Michael Harrington?” he queried. Monty nodded. “The same. She and Michael are two of the best friends I have. He’s a great old sport and she’s hurrying back because he has to stay on and can’t get over this year.” Monty flushed becomingly. “I’m going back with her because Nora is going to stay down in Long Island with them.” “Introduce me to Nora,” Denby insisted. “She is a new motif in your jocund song. Who is Nora, what is she, that Monty doth commend her?” “She’s the girl,” Monty explained. He sighed. “If you only knew how pretty she was, you wouldn’t talk about a trap being baited. I don’t think women are the good judges they pretend to be!” “Why not?” Denby demanded. “Because Alice says she’d accept me and I don’t believe I stand a ghost of a chance.” “Women are the only judges,” Denby assured him seriously. “If I were you I’d bank on your friend Alice every time.” “Then you’ll dine with me to-morrow?” Monty asked. “Of course. You don’t suppose I am going to lose sight of you, do you?” And Monty, grateful that this admired old school friend was so ready to join him, forgot the previous excuse about inability to spare the time. “That’s fine,” he exclaimed. “But what are we going to do to-night?” “You are going to dine with me,” Denby told him. “I haven’t seen you, let me see,” he reflected, “I haven’t seen you for about ten years and I want to talk over the old days. What do you say to trying some of Marguery’s _sole à la Normandie?_” During the course of the dinner Monty talked frankly and freely about his past, present and future. Denby learned that in view of the great wealth which would devolve upon him, his father had determined that he should become grounded in finance. When he had finished, he reflected that while he had opened his soul to his old friend, his old friend had offered no explanation of what in truth brought him to Europe, or why he had for almost a decade dropped out of his old set. “But what have you been doing?” Monty gathered courage to ask. “I’ve told you all about me and mine, Steve.” “There isn’t much to tell,” Denby responded slowly. “I left Groton because my father died. I’m afraid he wasn’t a shrewd man like your father, Monty. He was one of the last relics of New York’s brown-stone age and he tried to keep the pace when the marble age came in. He couldn’t do it.” “You were going into the diplomatic service,” Monty reminded him. “You used to specialize in modern languages, I remember. I suppose you had to give that up.”