The Stolen Apples System

by Achmed Abdullah

THE STOLEN APPLES SYSTEM

By Achmed Abdullah

I

THE name of the Economic Problem was Miss Priscilla Rutherfurd Van Twilliger, and Nature besides having given her her name—which was a very swagger one unless you happen to belong to the intolerant Brahmins who look back across the bridge of three hundred years or so and object, even at that roseate distance, to dissenting Liverpool tradesmen called Pilgrims and to merchants in Edam cheese and raw Genever spirits called Knickerbockers—had endowed her with a sum total of bully decorative material which made her look like a magazine cover with brains.

For she had an aureole of russet hair that piled up, carved and statuesque, like a Florentine helmet of the best Renaissance period; the sort of wide, generous mouth, coral rather than crimson, that seems to hide what it promises to give—some time; deep, bluish-black eyes speaking from underneath hooded brows of probable passion without the tiring confidence of passion too intimately satisfied; and a body that had neither the rustic outlines of the Macedonian peasant wench known as the Venus de Milo nor the ingrown curves, the Aubrey-Beardsleyan angles, and exaggerated dimples decreed by latter-day fashion and Mrs. Vernon Castle. She had achieved the physical impossibility of being both slim and plump, and the sartorial impossibility of being exceedingly well dressed without looking cocotte; and she could wear short skirts without making you think of Louis Quinze furniture.

She was what is known in the vulgate as a Peach.

But not the cling-stone variety.

For Nature had also given her a hatful of ideals. Ideals about love, about marriage, about men and women and what makes men and women tick, and it was there—in her role of analytical and, therefore, pessimistic idealist—that she had developed into an Economic Problem: from the point of view of her parents, Mr. Adrian Cuyper Van Twilliger, and Mrs. Julia Van Twilliger, née Rutherfurd.

They were rich. But not very rich. Say: thirty thousand dollars a year without work and without worry, a little red brick and white woodwork house on Eleventh Street, a few doors from Fifth Avenue, a place in Westchester County at exactly the correct distance between Suburbia and Yokeldom, four servants, including a French—not an English—butler, an electric landaulette without a nickel clamp to hold paper orchids, and a three thousand dollar automobile that usually lasted into the third season.

Of course, they had hereditary membership in the circles, clubs, cycles, cliques, coteries, conclaves, and camarillas of the Very Select. So hereditary, in fact, that Mrs. Van Twilliger had never seen the necessity of going to Europe and being presented at that Clearing House of the Socially Not So Damned Sure, known as the Court of Saint James, while her husband was a member of Tammany Hall, had a friend called Brian Korrigan, ate prunes, and used the Mid-Victorian toothpick—all without the slightest loss of caste.

He was so sure of himself socially that he even refused to run up trade bills, and in this he was supported by his wife who was an Old Dear: a little on the autumn side of fifty, of an attractively matronly bulk, rosy-skinned, small-footed, and with a mass of lovely, soft, snow-white hair which she powdered every morning of her life.

“Adrian dear,” said Mrs. Van Twilliger one morning, in her rose-and-silver boudoir—she belonged to just that generation—looking up from her household account book.

“Yes, my love?” Adrian Van Twilliger smiled affectionately at his wife.

“I wish to consult you on a matter of domestic importance.” Thirty-five years earlier she had visited the Misses Hodkins’ School for the Daughters of Gentlemen, and was very exact in her speech. “I have taken the trouble of dissecting our annual expenditure into its elemental components.”

At once he grew slightly nervous.

Since the day of their marriage he had left all business matters in the capable hands of his wife. It had always seemed so simple: thirty thousand dollars a year paid by the family trust in quarterly sums, the rest a mere detail of writing cheques and making correct additions and subtractions.

She turned a little in her chair.

“Adrian dear,” she continued, “I need your help. You may smoke.”

He smiled a charming smile and lit a fat, black cigar.

“Thank you, my love. And now—what?”

She poised her amethyst-topped gold pencil like a field marshal’s baton.

“Adrian dear, we have thirty thousand dollars a year.”

“I know. Quite enough for people of our modest taste.”

“It was enough twenty—ten—even five years ago. But the cost of living is rising every day. We are not extravagant. But—we must retrench.”

Adrian Van Twilliger sighed.

“Goodness!” he said. “And there’s that corking lot of 1878 Forster Jesuitengarten out of old Van Dusen’s cellar I was going to bid for. …”

“Yes! And the thirty-first pearl for my necklace!” He had given her a magnificent Oriental pearl, carefully matched and graded, on every anniversary since their wedding.

“And our new motorcar!” he suggested.

“And that lovely Chantilly lace Marie was going to bring me from Paris—she sent a sample. …”

“And the Cordova hangings we were going to get up at Sloanes for my downstairs smoking-room!”

“And the new sleeping porch up at Elmsdale!”

“And that lot of Havana imports I was going to split with Bob McClellan!”

“Yes!” she summarized. “This and that—and again this. I have figured it out. Every cent of it. And, to do it all, we need five thousand dollars more. Five thousand dollars more a year!”

He shook his head, rather hopelessly.

“I don’t know what to say, Julia dear. Our income is paid us out of a trust fund. Thirty thousand dollars a year—neither more nor less. There is no elasticity, no margin, no stretching either way. I am afraid we'll have to do without the sleeping porch and the lot of Havana imports and the Chantilly lace and. …”

“No, Adrian dear! We are going to cut out five thousand dollars—but—” she smiled—‘we are going to cut it out where we can—and spend it where we please!”

“What do you mean?”

“Look here!” She showed him a certain page in her account book. “This is our yearly expenditure, dissected as I told you into its elemental components.”

He read. There were four simple items.

First the household expenses which included everything except the personal expenses of the Van Twilliger family, and amounted to fifteen thousand dollars.

Then three items, as follows:

Mr. Van Twilliger	$5,000
Mrs. Van Twilliger	5,000
Miss Van Twilliger	5,000
	15,000
Sum total, including household expenses	$15,000
	$30,000

“But what can we do, my love?” he mused.

“We shall eliminate one of these three five thousand dollar items.”

“Which one?”

“The last! Priscilla!”

“But—how?” He flicked the ash from his cigar. “How? Priscilla is not an extravagant child.”

“Marriage, Adrian dear,” Mrs. Van Twilliger announced in a tone of finality and while he sighed and looked worried—for he was familiar with his daughter’s view on love and marriage—she called her maid.

“Roberts,” she said, “ask Miss Priscilla to come here.”

And a minute later her daughter came into the boudoir, looking charming in her little rounded corsage which spoke eloquently of the Third Empire and the Rue Royale and casually of Fifth Avenue, and her underdress of silver lace frills, with floats and flutes of transparent chiffon.

“I am sorry, Mother dear,” she smiled. “I have not much time. We have a rehearsal up at the Lonnings. You know—for the charity fête. Dress rehearsal. How d’you like mine?”

“Lovely, my dear. You are playing in that Watteau scene—together with young Cornelius de Graaf, I believe?”

“Yes, Mother.”

She looked up sharply, suspiciously, a faint note of defiance creeping into her voice.

“Priscilla,” went on Mrs. Van Twilliger, “I wish to speak to you about Cornelius. … No!” to her husband who was trying to leave the room softly. “You must stay here, Adrian dear. It is your responsibility as much as mine. And now—” turning again to her daughter—“listen! Your father and I have decided that you must marry. Soon!”

“I … I have not …” stammered Mr. Van Twilliger, but his wife continued, quite unruffled:

“You have, dear. Remember your Havana imports, your Forster Jesuitengarten, the Cordova hangings for your smoking-room! Yes, Priscilla, we have decided that you must marry.”

“Why?” asked the girl, flushing pink.

“Because …” Mrs. Van Twilliger hesitated, then spoke out bravely, “because you are a luxury which we cannot afford any longer. You cost us five thousand dollars a year—”

“Well worth it, darling, well worth it,” cut in Mr. Van Twilliger, who was growing more unhappy by the second, but his wife went on, as if she had not heard:

“Five thousand dollars. A sixth of our income, and we are getting old, your father and I, and the cost of living is rising steadily. Why, child, it may seem heartless, but—it is only fair.”

“Fair?” cried the girl.

“Yes. Fair—towards us, your parents—and have you a right to expect that life should be less fair toward us, because we are old, than towards you, because you are young? We love you, dearest. We want your happiness.”

She drew the girl to her and caressed her cheeks. “But you are—yes!—you are an Economic Problem! As such, you must be solved!”

“Mother!” exclaimed Priscilla, outraged, drawing away.

But the older woman continued quite calmly:

“Yes. You are an Economic Problem, and the solution for you, and for us, is your marriage.”

She looked at her husband, mutely demanding support, and he did his best.

“Your mother is right, daughter,” he said. “You must marry. And why not? Cornelius de Graaf is a nice, clean chap. Good family. Good-looking. Well-to-do. You have grown up together. And you are fond of each other—aren’t you, dear?”

“Yes, Father,” murmured Priscilla.

“Well—there you are!” said Mr. Van Twilliger, with an effort at ruddy joviality. “What are you waiting for? Go ahead and get married, like two good little kiddies!”

“I … I … we …” stammered the girl. She hid her head in her mother’s ample bosom. Her words came out choked and halting:

“He—he has never asked me, Mother dear!”

If she had expected to find sympathy, she was destined to be mistaken. For her mother coughed impatiently.

“Priscilla,” she said, “I love you. But you are a goose. I have told you often—goodness knows how often—that a man never proposes.”

“But—Julia dear!” from Mr. Van Twilliger.

“I know what you are going to say,” countered his wife, “but you are mistaken. You did not propose to me. The initiative was mine. Naturally, since I am a woman.”

Again she turned to her daughter:

“Priscilla, I have watched you, and I have noticed that you treat Cornelius—no—not as a stranger. That wouldn’t be so bad. But as a brother. As a man whom you can trust absolutely. And that is a mistake. It is insulting to his manhood. No man likes to be trusted—quite! You must encourage him, indirectly. You must give him a chance to feel wicked, and as soon as he feels wicked you must give him another chance—a chance to show his nobler nature—so that he can make up for his wickedness—by proposing marriage!”

“I shan’t do any such thing!” The girl was frankly mutinous. Her fine, bluish-black eyes blazed. “I shan’t. I’d rather go away and work in a factory—or nurse—or—something. I have my own principles about life and men and women. I do not believe in treating marriage like a game, which you play with a line and a hook and bait …”

“A sucker!” broke in Mr. Van Twilliger, to be silenced at once by his wife, who asked him to leave the room—“I must speak to your daughter in private, Adrian”; and when he, more than willing, had closed the door behind him, she turned again to Priscilla.

“You want to get married. Yes or no?”

“I … I …”

“Yes or no?”

“Yes!”

“Good!” Mrs. Van Twilliger smiled. Here was a card turned down in her favor. “And—oh—you would accept Cornelius de Graaf if he proposed to you? … All right,” seeing the confusion in her daughter’s face, “you needn’t answer. You would say yes if he proposed. Very well. Make him propose. That’s common sense.”

“I shan’t!” repeated Priscilla, her sentimental young-girlish ingenuousness dropping from her like a cloak.

Something like the fanaticism of a crusader came into her eyes. Up went her right hand, palm outward in the approved style of the Suffrage platform.

She spoke with a firm, hard voice,

“The feminine intelligence has long enough. …”

That was as far as she got.

For her mother interrupted her with a snort and an impatient:

“Nonsense! Don’t tell me anything about modern ideas, my dear. Love is not modern. Nor is sex. Men and women have not changed since I was your age.”

“They have, too!”

“Silly! The only difference is that you girls are becoming more foolish every year. We, thirty years ago, used to suffer from wind and Ouida and moral antimacassars and ethical ormolu. While you of the new generation—with your ideas about the psychology of love and marriage and eugenics and economic independence and feminism and half a dozen other fads—why!” She shrugged her shoulders. “There’s exactly one way to catch a man. …”

“I do not want to catch a man, Mother!”

“You do. Nor need you be ashamed of trying to catch the man you love—when you know that he loves you. And now—” she settled back comfortably in her chair, “I shall tell you the system.”

II

The girl was hurt. The very idea of speaking about a “system” when it was a question of love, the finest, biggest, sweetest adventure in the world!

But—suddenly her thoughts whirled—why, she herself had always treated all human emotions like drab questions in the Rule-of-Three, had always made a point of dissecting the heart and the soul, of trying to find out what made men and women tick. Surely, her mother had the same right.

So she did not reply a word, while Mrs. Van Twilliger continued calmly:

“It is the system of—ahem—Stolen Apples.”

This time Priscilla replied. Just one word, uttered in a sort of horrified staccato:

“Mother!”

“Don’t be shocked. It isn’t as bad as it sounds. Too, your father once told me that it has theological sanction—considering the intermezzo in the Garden of Eden, with the snake. I am not asking you to compromise yourself with young Cornelius—roadhouse—all that—you know. But, don’t you see, all men, including Cornelius de Graaf, have had their little affairs.”

“Cornelius has not!”

Mrs. Van Twilliger smiled.

“He has! With girls of a different class of society from ours, of course. Let me tell you how he does it—and how the girl does it. It’s the latter which really matters to you.”

“I do not want to know.”

“Nonsense! You do want to know. If only from mere blessed girlish curiosity. I …”

“How do you happen to know so much about it?” cut in Priscilla sarcastically.

“Your father told me—and my brothers. They think—poor dears—that it is a great secret of the male, and once in a while, when they need help—as your father did and my brothers—they confide in a woman—a clever, broad-minded woman like myself, who, of course, knew all about it before they had a chance to open their mouths—since I have used the corresponding system myself, against the male! Listen, dear—” She spoke slowly, with a certain academic unction. “The young man—Cornelius de Graaf, for instance—meets a young girl. A young girl, let us say, from Brooklyn, or Flatbush, or Flushing, or the Bronx.

“How could Cornelius meet such a girl?”

“Aha! How? That’s the question. But he does. He talks to her—on the street, in a shop, a street car. …”

“Mother!”

“I tell you he does! He meets her according to the Stolen Apples system, away from the protective bosom and the carved golden oak sideboard of her family home—in Brooklyn—or Flatbush—or the Bronx—or—” Mrs. Van Twilliger’s knowledge of New York City geography was vague, “the Borough of Queens generally. She likes his looks, smiles, answers. She is clever. She does not play the insulted. For she, too, unbeknown to him, is familiar with the system. Very well. He talks to her of love—at once—”

“No.

“Yes! At once! Why—they have nothing else in common to talk about, have they, my dear? Cornelius is delighted. A sweet little family girl—he says to himself—and he has conquered her with his manly charms. A secret love affair—Stolen Apples! And then they have two or three rendezvous, a few motor rides into the country, supper somewhere on the Boston Road—and then. …”

“Mother!”

“Don’t interrupt me all the time, please. Also, don’t be previous. Cornelius is a gentleman, I trust. He does nothing wrong. He belongs to the new generation—he prefers feeling noble to enjoying himself. But he—what is the slang term—yes!—he fell for the Stolen Apples system, unaware of the fact that the girl is clever—more clever than girls of his own class, like yourself, for instance—and that she is familiar with the same system. The girl’s parents, too, know the system—from their particular angle—”

“I thought Cornelius had a secret love affair. If so, he doesn’t know the parents.”

“That’s what he thought. But—well—they know him! Daughter spoke about him. Well—her father is a mason, or a bricklayer, or an express driver, or … what do I know? At all events, he belongs to the class of society which your dear father calls the people with muscles and no foreheads. And then—”

“And then?” echoed Priscilla, who was curious in spite of herself.

“One fine romantic, sentimental, soft spring evening, when Cornelius’ little steel-grey roadster pulls up in back of the gas tower—in the Bronx, or Flatbush, or Brooklyn—instead of the girl, out comes a gentleman with a beard and a hairy cap and a corncob pipe and a wretched accent and a glitter in his eyes. And he greets Cornelius with the words: ‘I am Maisie’s father—and I'd like to know what your intentions are in regard to my daughter!’ If that had happened forty years ago Cornelius would have replied—I know of just such a case—“You ask me what are my intentions in regard to your daughter, sir? All right. I’ll tell you. My intentions are dishonorable, sir—strictly dishonorable!’ But Cornelius belongs to the new generation, the conscientious, analytical generation—your own generation, Priscilla dear—and so he stammers and blushes. ‘I—I didn’t mean to compromise your daughter,’ he says—and then Maisie’s father has him where he wants him. He is given the choice between—”

“Marrying the girl and dying?” the girl asked, breathlessly.

“Heavens, no! Cornelius isn’t a coward. Brute force wouldn’t be a convincing argument with him. The plumber—or bricklayer—or whatever he is—knows that, too. He knows all about the wave of conscientious sentimentality which has swept over the rich —he talks sentiment, duty, nobility—and so Cornelius has the choice—”

“What choice?” impatiently from Priscilla.

“The choice between paying the three thousand dollars which he offers—and the ten thousand dollars which the paternal bricklayer demands. Maisie’s people do not want her to marry Cornelius. They would think it a mésalliance. They belong to the Union and look down upon a man like him. They want their daughter to marry the red-haired Irish grocer around the corner. And so Cornelius gets caught in the mazes of the Stolen Apples system—and he pays—cash!”

“What has this—this system—to do with Cornelius—and me?”

“Everything, darling. Cornelius likes the system. It gives a certain spice and flavor to his life—a spice of danger, of adventure, of wickedness—and finally nobility! And you …? Of course, I am not asking you to copy everything Maisie does. For instance, it would be dreadfully silly to meet Cornelius behind a gas tower. Nor shall I ask your father to corner the boy and ask him his intentions. Adrian is a dear—but I could never persuade him to do that. Still, there are other ways. For instance …"

“I will not listen any more, Mother!” cried the girl, suddenly furious. “How —how can you talk like that? You make me feel ashamed for you, for myself, for our whole sex! Love—love isn’t a game—nor a science—nor a business. …”

“But—”

“No, no, no! I shan’t listen! Why—you talk like a w-w-wicked old woman in a French novel!”—and she burst into sobs and rushed out of the boudoir, while Mrs. Van Twilliger looked after her, rather surprised, and murmured to herself:

“Heavens above! I am quite positive Priscilla must have misunderstood me. I didn’t mean to …”

A minute later she was her usual bland, charming self.

Two minutes later a certain thought had come to her which seemed to be amusing as well as comforting, for her clear old eyes puckered in a smile and she rubbed her hands with every sign of inner satisfaction.

And three minutes later, when her husband came into the room, she greeted him with a cheerful:

“Adrian, you are just the man I want to see.”

“Have you persuaded Priscilla?”

“No.”

Adrian Van Twilliger sighed.

“Lord—what are we going to do?”

He pointed at the household account book with its accusing columns of figures.

“The first thing to do is to order your Forster Jesuitengarten, your Havana imports, my thirty-first pearl, the …”

“But—I thought you had not succeeded in—ahem—solving our charming little Economic Problem?”

“Do not ask me any questions, Adrian dear. Just do what I beg you.”

“Yes, my love.”

He inclined his head.

He knew, by a lengthy gamut of marital experiences, when his wife had arrived at a decision and, at once, he ceased to worry.

“Are you going to the club this afternoon?” she asked as he rose.

“I will if you wish me to.”

“Thank you, my dear. And, if you should happen to see Cornelius de Graaf there, ask him up to our house for dinner tonight, if he has no previous engagement. Small, informal dinner—tell him. Just the four of us—quite en famille. By the way—” as her husband was about to leave the room, “I shall give Priscilla grandmother’s emerald and pearl tiara as a wedding present.”

“Wedding present? Wha—what do you mean?”

Mrs. Van Twilliger smiled—a smile which, in a woman not of her breeding and social position, would have been called crafty, vulpine.

“Never mind, Adrian dear. But if you want to save time, go down to Whaley’s and order the cards.”

“What cards?”

“Oh, the usual—‘Mr. and Mrs. Adrian Cuyper Van Twilliger announce the engagement of their only daughter Priscilla to Mr. Cornelius de Graaf—’”

“You—you mean that?”

“Yes! Cornelius is going to propose tonight!”—there was a cold glitter in her eyes.

“Extraordinary woman! Might have been a General!” murmured Mr. Van as as he closed the door behind him.

III

When, that evening, Mr. Cornelius Je Graaf was shown into the yellow salon, Priscilla looked at him with a certain curiosity which partook of apprehension. She knew, of course, that the story which her mother had told about him and the girl named tentatively Maisie and, as tentatively, the daughter of a Bronx bricklayer, was hypothetical. But—suppose something similar to the hypothetical case had happened to Cornelius—might happen—was going to happen in the future?

Here was a bully chance to analyze hypothetical if’s, a juicy bit for psychological teeth to chew on, a gorgeous opportunity to play the pessimistic idealist—and Priscilla Van Twilliger rose to it.

Her mother had come into the salon and had engaged Cornelius in animated conversation, and so she could study him without his noticing it and, in consequence, making her feel self-conscious. He was good-looking—there was no doubt of it—with his splendid, solid, bony frame, his breadth of shoulder and depth of chest, his dark curly hair, the short upper lip with the little mustache accentuating the curve of the mouth, the healthy, round face sloping to a cleft chin—and the grey, deep-set eyes. Formerly she had thought that Cornelius’ eyes mirrored a certain sound, homely simplicity, a certain rough, unself-conscious decency and goodness.

But—had she not been mistaken in her analysis of his character? What about the hypothetical Maisie—the Stolen Apples?

Why—what about …

She cut off the thought in mid-air.

Deep down in her earnest, shrill little feminine soul she realized that she was about to become jealous—“hypothetically’ jealous. She did not want to think about Cornelius de Graaf. She decided that he did not interest her—not in the least. She drew her soft lips into the nearest approach to a thin, steely line she could master, and when her father came in and, a minute later, the butler announced that dinner was served, she walked into the dining-room by the side of Cornelius, her eyes stubbornly searching the floor, her mind and soul heavy with an ill-assorted pabulum of mutinous, irregular thoughts.

No!—she said to herself, as Cornelius placed her chair, she did not want to know about him. Even suppose she had once cared for him, her own mother had polluted the charm, the romance, the glory of it with her wicked, wire-drawn worldly-wisdom.

So, while sherry and hors d’œuvres were being served, she only opened her mouth to say “Yes” or “No” or “Indeed” or “You don’t say so” when Cornelius spoke to her.

The result was that the latter, who had really looked forward to the little intimate dinner and had accepted Mr. Van Twilliger’s invitation with alacrity, felt first astonished, then hurt, then obstinate, then—since he was young—stupid, and gave similar replies to his host who, obeying his wife’s strategic cough, drew him into conversation—with a rather too consummate endeavor after genial ease which made matters worse.

Adrian Van Twilliger was worried. For the dinner promised to be a flat failure, in spite of the fact that the soup mongole was good, the caviare of the most approved molossol variety, big-grained and unsalted, the filet de sole served with a pink mussel sauce which M. Marguery himself could not have surpassed, the Chateau Yquem oily and flower-scented, and the Port as crusty as an elderly Major of Marines.

“Yes—”

“No—”

“Yes—”

“No—”

“Yes—” Cornelius and Priscilla replied, like two sulky children.

“Indeed—”

“You don’t say so—” like the responses in some tiresome litany.

They hardly took the trouble to look up from their plates, and Adrian Van Twilliger was growing more nervous by the minute. He looked across at his wife, who sat there like a well-fed, rosy-skinned, white-haired sphinx. But he had been married long enough to understand her every mood and gesture, and when she winked at him slowly he knew that, somehow, she was not displeased at the way things were progressing.

So he ceased to worry and turned again to Cornelius de Graaf with various “that reminds me, my boy …” which were received with flat, disheartening “Ohs.”

It was when the roast and burgundy were brought on the mahogany that a certain change came; first over Cornelius; and then over Priscilla. It came quite suddenly, unexpectedly, without any apparent reason, and Adrian Van Twilliger was frankly puzzled.

He was in the midst of a lengthy anecdote and the younger man was listening with scrupulous and supremely bored civility.

“Oh—rather, Mr. Van Twilliger,” he had just said when, all at once, he looked away from his host—and at Priscilla—with an expression in his eyes of incredulity, surprise, pleasure and delight.

She caught the look, and blushed.

He smiled—an odd little, knowing smile. A second later he seemed to have forgotten all about Mr. Van Twilliger and Mr. Van Twilliger’s lengthy anecdotes and was turning to Priscilla with a volley of small talk about quite young things—

“I say, Priscilla,” he commenced, “do you remember—that day with the Meadowbrook. …”

“Why, yes, Cornelius. …”

And when the bombe praliné and the coffee came on the table, the dining-room was divided into two camps: Cornelius de Graaf and Priscilla laughing, talking, reminiscing, childishly happy, and with a certain undertow of expectant excitement; and Mr. and Mrs. Van Twilliger—the former puzzled, but pleased—and the latter calm, serene and smiling.

IV

At half past ten that evening Cornelius asked Mr. and Mrs. Van Twilliger for the hand of their daughter, and was accepted.

Ten minutes later he was sitting on the couch in the music room, with his arm around Priscilla’s waist.

And, at just about the same time, Mr. Van Twilliger was smoking a cigar in his wife’s boudoir.

“How did it happen, Julia?” he asked, still dazed.

She was in the act of blue-pencilling the column in her account book which was entitled: “Miss Priscilla Van Twilliger.”

“Adrian dear,” she commenced—she blushed, and was silent.

“Tell me, my love, how did it happen? Don’t you know?”

“Of course I know. I did it.”

“You did it? What did you do?”

“I—” again she blushed, then she spoke out bravely. “I—I decided to encourage Cornelius—to—to give him a taste of Stolen Apples. I—”

“Well?”

“I played—footie with him!” She brought out the word as if it choked her. “And he—Cornelius—thought it was Priscilla’s foot!”

And upstairs, in the music room, Cornelius and Priscilla wondered at the peals of laughter which drifted down from Mrs. Van Twilliger’s boudoir.