you're hampered by the facts in the case. I couldn't say that he'd fallen in love with her over a plate of corn-beef hash. I had to make it 'It is said' this and 'It is reported' that. That's the sort of thing that drives so many discouraged newspaper men into magazine work."
Walter heard him with the air of an elder brother listening to a precocious younger one. Don did not hear him at all—until Conroy's name, mentioned in the conversation, caught his ear. Then he looked up to catch Bert sayings in a low aside to Walter: "There's a lady in the case." And suddenly he remembered the hat and veil which he had seen on the dining-room table.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
But Bert Pittsey refused to tell. "Excuse me," he said. "I don't 'muddle' in any private affairs unless for purposes of publication."
"Who is she?"
He bowed, like a politician declining to be interviewed. "I have nothing whatever to say on that subject at present."
"She was there—wasn't she?—when I called the other day?"
"Very sorry, boys, very sorry. But you'll have to excuse me to-day. Fine weather we're having, is it not?"
Walter laughed. "You had better keep out of it," he advised Don. "You'll only get yourself into more trouble."
"Me too," Bert said. "I intend to dissolve partner-
