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 always was to hail success. She rejoiced in young men who profited by admonitions.

"Ah, the burden-bearer!" patronized the count, arising and advancing.

Harrington was a bit stary. He saw approaching him an opossum grin and the wide expanse of white shirt over a breast which he was willing to wager he had seen only nine hours before covered with blue flannel and oozing a red welter upon the green of a forest floor. But he tried to rise to the moment.

"I am quite disappointed, Count Eckstrom, to hear of your leaving us," he began well enough; but his instinctive dislike for the man plus his suspicions and irritating bewilderment, made him suddenly rude. "By the way, Miss Boland," he inquired coolly: "Had you noticed how very much Count Eckstrom's voice resembles Mr. Scanlon's?"

Billie was shocked. This was rather gauche, since Scanlon was such a coarse person; and there was nothing charming about his voice either; it was unpleasant. True, Count Eckstrom's tones were husky, but they were charming. Count Eckstrom was all charm.

"I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Scanlon," said Count Eckstrom suavely, but the line of his brow straightened proudly. "Perhaps he got his husk in the same cloud of phosgene that I got mine—not far from Châlons-sur-Marne."

This was the retort caustic.

"I am afraid it was Three Star Hennessey that gassed Scanlon's voice," smiled Mr. Boland as believing the conversation should be lightened; but nobody laughed. Billie continued slightly vexed. Harrington seemed still to be blundering.