looking down in an innocent perplexity. "It's just this: I am on the
Foundlings' Board with Mrs. Schuyler Blunt, and I don't know her, and you
can't think how awkward it is having to meet her every week in that stiff
kind of way." She did not go on to confide to Jack how she had intrigued
to get on the board, and how Mrs. Schuyler Blunt, in the most well-bred
manner, had practically ignored her.

"She's an old friend of mine."

"Indeed! She's a charming woman."

"Yes. We were great cronies when she was Sadie Mack. She isn't a
genius, but she is good-hearted. I suppose she is on all the charity
boards in the city. She patronizes everything," Jack continued, with a
smile.

"I'm sure she is," said Carmen, thinking that however good-hearted she
might be she was very "snubby." "And it makes it all the more awkward,
for I am interested in so many things myself."

"I can arrange all that," Jack said, in an off-hand way. Carmen's look
of gratitude could hardly be distinguished from affection. "That's easy
enough. We are just as good friends as ever, though I fancy she doesn't
altogether approve of me lately. It's rather nice for a fellow, Mrs.
Henderson, to have a lot of women keeping him straight, isn't it?" asked
Jack, in the tone of a bad boy.

"Yes. Between us all we will make a model of you. I am so glad now that
I told you."