constantly. In any one else that'd be a bad sign."

"Gloria is a very young soul--" began Mrs. Gilbert eagerly, but her
nephew interrupted with a hurried sentence:

"Gloria'd be a very young nut not to marry him." He stopped and faced
her, his expression a battle map of lines and dimples, squeezed and
strained to its ultimate show of intensity--this as if to make up by his
sincerity for any indiscretion in his words. "Gloria's a wild one, Aunt
Catherine. She's uncontrollable. How she's done it I don't know, but
lately she's picked up a lot of the funniest friends. She doesn't seem
to care. And the men she used to go with around New York were--" He
paused for breath.

"Yes-yes-yes," interjected Mrs. Gilbert, with an anaemic attempt to hide
the immense interest with which she listened.

"Well," continued Richard Caramel gravely, "there it is. I mean that the
men she went with and the people she went with used to be first rate.
Now they aren't."

Mrs. Gilbert blinked very fast--her bosom trembled, inflated, remained
so for an instant, and with the exhalation her words flowed out in
a torrent.

She knew, she cried in a whisper; oh, yes, mothers see these things. But
what could she do? He knew Gloria. He'd seen enough of Gloria to know
how hopeless it was to try to deal with her. Gloria had been so
spoiled--in a rather complete and unusual way. She had been suckled
until she was three, for instance, when she could probably have chewed