"Oh--why--yes--of course! I'd be delighted! I'd be--be! Only--! Only
I'm afraid that--!"

Deprecatingly with uplifted hand the Older Man refuted every
protest. "No, indeed, Mr. Barton," he insisted. "Oh, no--no indeed--I
assure you it won't inconvenience my daughter in the slightest! My
daughter is very obliging! My daughter, indeed--if I may say so
in all modesty--my daughter indeed is always a good deal of
a--philanthropist!"

Then very grandiloquently, like a man in an old-fashioned picture, he
began to back away from them, bowing low all the time, very, very low,
first to Barton, then to his daughter, then to Barton again.

"I wish you both a very good afternoon!" he said. "Really, I see no
reason why either of you should expect a single dull moment!"

[Illustration: "I would therefore respectfully suggest as a special
topic of conversation the consummate cheek of--yours truly, Paul
Reymouth Edgarton"]

Before the sickly grin on Barton's face his own smile deepened into
actual unctuousness. But before the sudden woodeny set of his
daughter's placid mouth his unctuousness twisted just a little bit
wryly on his lips.

"After all, my dear young people," he asserted hurriedly, "there's
just one thing in the world, you know, that makes two people
congenial, and that is--that they both shall have arrived at exactly
the same conclusion--by two totally different routes. It's got to be