"HOW did you hurt him?" she persisted.

"I ate lunch," said Zoie with the face of a cherub.

"With whom?" questioned Aggie slyly. She was beginning to scent the

probable origin of the misunderstanding.

"It's of no consequence," answered Zoie carelessly; "I wouldn't have

wiped my feet on the man." By this time she had entirely forgotten

Aggie's proprietorship in the source of her trouble.

"But who WAS the man?" urged Aggie, and in her mind, she had already

condemned him as a low, unprincipled creature.

"What does that matter?" asked Zoie impatiently. "It's ANY man with

Advertisement..

Alfred--you know that--ANY man!"

Aggie sank in a chair and looked at her friend in despair. "Why DO you

do these things," she said wearily, "when you know how Alfred feels

about them?"

"You talk as though I did nothing else," answered Zoie with an aggrieved

tone. "It's the first time since I've been married that I've ever eaten

lunch with any man but Alfred. I thought you'd have a little sympathy

with me," she whimpered, "instead of putting me on the gridiron like

everyone else does."

"Everyone else?" questioned Aggie, with recurring suspicion.

"I mean Alfred," explained Zoie. "HE'S 'everyone else' to me." And then

with a sudden abandonment of grief, she threw herself prostrate at her

friend's knees. "Oh, Aggie, what can I do?" she cried.

But Aggie was not satisfied with Zoie's fragmentary account of her

latest escapade. "Is that the only thing that Alfred has against you?"

she asked.

"That's the LATEST," sniffled Zoie, in a heap at Aggie's feet. And then

she continued in a much aggrieved tone, "You know he's ALWAYS rowing

because we haven't as many babies as the cook has cats."

"Well, why don't you get him a baby?" asked the practical, far-seeing

Aggie.

"It's too late NOW," moaned Zoie.

"Not at all," reassured Aggie. "It's the very thing that would bring him

back."

"How COULD I get one?" questioned Zoie, and she looked up at Aggie with

round astonished eyes.

"Adopt it," answered Aggie decisively.

Zoie regarded her friend with mingled disgust and disappointment. "No,"

she said with a sigh and a shake of her head, "that wouldn't do any

good. Alfred's so fussy. He always wants his OWN things around."

"He needn't know," declared Aggie boldly.




Most Popular