“You see,” she went on, “If the Draper woman were the ordinary type of model there would be no problem at all.  Dicky has always been a sort of Sir Galahad of the studios and he had been too proud to engage in even a slight flirtation with any girl in his employ.  He is very sincerely in love with you, too, and that safeguards him from any influence that is not quite out of the ordinary.

“But I tell you this Draper girl is a person to be reckoned with.  She is hard as nails, beautiful as the devil, and I believe her to be perfectly unscrupulous.  She is as interested in Dicky as she can be in any one outside herself, and I think she would like to smash things generally just to gratify her own egotism.”

“You mean—­” I forced the words through stiff lips.

“I mean she is trying her best to make Dicky fall in love with her, but she isn’t going to succeed.”

“But I am afraid she has succeeded!” The wail broke from me almost without my own volition.

“Why?” The monosyllable was sharp with anxiety.

I knew better than to keep my part of the story from her.  I told her of Dicky’s growing coldness to me, his anxiety to get the train upon which Miss Draper traveled, the neighborhood gossip, his determination not to have me meet her sister.  I also laid bare the coldness with which I had treated the girl, and my determination never to say a word which would lead Dicky to believe I was jealous of her.

When I had finished Lillian leaned back in her chair and laughed lightly.

“Is that all?” she demanded.  “I thought you had something really serious to tell me.  If you’ll do exactly as I tell you we’ll beat this game hands down.”

“I’ll do just as you say,” I responded, although it humiliated me to be put in the position of trying to beat any game, the stake of which was my husband’s affections.

“Well, then, that is settled,” she said, rising.  “Now, for the first gun of the campaign.  Call Dicky up, tell him you just lunched with me, and you are ready to go home any time he is.”

“Oh, I can’t do that,” I said.  “I couldn’t bear to feel that he might prefer to take the train with her.”

Lillian came to my side, gripped my shoulder hard, and looked into my eyes grimly.

“See here,” she said, “are you going to be a baby or a woman in this thing?”

I swallowed hard.  I knew she was right.

“I’ll do whatever you wish,” I responded meekly.

So I called Dicky on the telephone, and after explaining my unexpected presence in town, arranged to meet him at the station and go home with him.

“Sounds as if we were going to dine with Friend Husband,” said Lillian, as I hung up the receiver.

“Yes, we are going home by trolley from Jamaica.  It ought to be a beautiful trip.  Dicky must have been thinking of such a trip before, for he told me there was a train to Jamaica at five minutes of four which connects with the trolley, and he usually gets mixed on the schedule of the trains from Marvin.”