“One of these days somebody will start a Society for the Reformation of the Press,” thought Flossie. “I wonder how the papers will take it?” “You mean my friendship is going to be of no use to you?” asked Joan.!

Flossie, since she had become engaged, had acquired quite a matronly train of thought. She spoke kindly, with a little grave shake of her head. “My dear,” she said, “the wife is always in the way. You’d feel just the same whatever her face was like.” But the sinner, confessing his fault, is entitled to forgiveness, and, having put him back into his proper place, she let him kiss her hand. She even went further and let him ask her out to dinner. As the result of her failure to reform Mrs. Phillips she was feeling dissatisfied with herself. It was an unpleasant sensation and somewhat new to her experience. An evening spent in Arthur’s company might do her good. The experiment proved successful. He really was quite a dear boy. Eyeing him thoughtfully through the smoke of her cigarette, it occurred to her how like he was to Guido’s painting of St. Sebastian; those soft, dreamy eyes and that beautiful, almost feminine, face! There always had been a suspicion of the saint about him even as a boy: nothing one could lay hold of: just that odd suggestion of a shadow intervening between him and the world.

Mr. Simson shook his head. “Somebody’s got to tackle them,” he said. “Tell them the truth about themselves, to their faces.” “Ask Phillips to come and see me,” he said. “I can be of more help, if I know exactly his views.” It surprised her when one evening after dinner he introduced it himself.