"Had I ventured to hope that you were to be here," said he, with a little bow--and was there the slightest, most daring stress upon the pronouns?--"you may be sure I should have arrived long ago." Carlisle, dauntless, looked full at him and laughed audaciously. "I recall you now as a maker of the very prettiest speeches. And the worst of it is--_I_ like them!... Mamma," she added, with fine, gay courage, "it is sad to go just as the guests arrive. Yet don't you think, really--" "I'm afraid we must, my dear. Willie's evidently--" But the need for tactics was fortunately at an end. If Carlisle had drawn it rather fine, it was yet not too fine. The door flew open, and in bounded Willie. Destiny climbed to the wheel once more. Willie, though heated with hurry and worry, handled the situation loyally and well, expressing just the right amount of surprise at the coincidental assemblage, in just the right places. Of his detention at the bank (where, as we may infer from his long incumbency, he discharged a tellership to the complete satisfaction of the depositing public), he spoke in bitter detail. "If you'll excuse the French, ma'am," he summed up, "a man might's well be in hell as ten cents out." "Why, I do think, Willie," said Mrs. Heth, "that rather than take all that trouble, I should simply have paid the ten cents from my own pocket and said no more about it." But even Willie, perfect host though he was, did not see his way clear at the moment to explaining the banking system to a lady. "You might call it sporting pride, ma'am," he said, patiently, and proposed a little tour of the rooms. The tour, in the nature of the case, was a little one, almost a fireside tour, and soon over. Willie simply did not have the material to spin it out indefinitely. Then refreshments were hospitably insisted on: tea--muffins--something of that sort, you know--and Willie cried down his order through the telephone, which had already been duly admired--one in every room, etc. Next from a hidden cubby he produced siphon-water, glasses, and a black bottle of Scotch. Needed it, said he--digging two hours for ten cents out. "Like the quarters, hey, Canning? Gad, may move again. Man across the hall--bigger rooms--wants to sublet. Like you to look at 'em sometime, Cousin Isabel. Say, Cousin Isabel, by the bye," he added, expertly putting ice into three glasses, "ran down that chap V. Vivian for you, just now. Fact. Old Sleuth Kerr--catches 'em alive. He's Armistead Beirne's nephew--just turned up here--what d'you think of that?" "Mr. Beirne's _nephew_!" echoed Carlisle Heth, without the slightest strategy. "Vivian? Who on _earth_, Willie?" demanded Mrs. Heth, puzzled; and looked, not at Willie, but at Carlisle.