only an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man actually and
deeply in love with her. Yes; it is a fact, Joan. I know Dick Demorest,
and if ever there was a man honestly in love, it is he."

"Then you mean to say that this man--an utter stranger to me--a man
whom I've never laid my eyes on--whom I wouldn't know if I met in the
street--expects me to advise him--to--to--" She stopped. Blandford could
scarcely believe his senses. There were tears in her eyes--this woman
who never cried; her voice trembled--she who had always controlled her
emotions.

He took advantage of this odd but opportune melting. He placed his
arm around her shoulders. She tried to escape it, but with a coy, shy
movement, half hysterical, half girlish, unlike her usual stony, moral
precision. "Yes, Joan," he repeated, laughingly, "but whose fault is it?
Not HIS, remember! And I firmly believe he thinks you can do him good."

"But he has never seen me," she continued, with a nervous little laugh,
"and probably considers me some old Gorgon--like--like--Sister Jemima
Skerret."

Blandford smiled with the complacency of far-reaching masculine
intuition. Ah! that shrewd fellow, Demorest, was right. Joan, dear Joan,
was only a woman after all.

"Then he'll be the more agreeably astonished," he returned, gayly, "and
I think YOU will, too, Joan. For Dick isn't a bad-looking fellow; most
women like him. It's true," he continued, much amused at the novelty
of the perfectly natural toss and grimace with which Mrs. Blandford
received this statement.