Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford

Neil, the next day after his talk with Minnie Bishop, had a great idea, which was nothing more nor less than a Supreme Circle Conclave, in which a picked degree team would exemplify the ritual, and to which delegates from all the local circles should be invited. They had never held a Supreme Conclave, and they needed it to arouse enthusiasm. Clover fell in with the idea at once. It would provide him with an opportunity for one of the spread-eagle speeches he was so fond of making. As this phase of the business -- comprising the insurance and the lodge work -- was left completely in charge of Clover and Neil, Wallingford made no objections, and, having ample funds for carrying out such a plan, it was accordingly arranged. Neil went on the road at once about this matter, but letters between himself and Minnie Bishop passed almost daily. An indefinable change had come over the girl.

She had grown more earnest, for one thing, but she assumed a forced flippancy with Wallingford because she found that it was her only defense against him. She turned off his advances as jests, and her instinct of coquetry, though now she recognized it and was ashamed of it, made her able to puzzle and hold uncertainly aloof even this experienced "man of the world. " It was immediately after she had jerked her hand away from under his one afternoon that, in place of the reproof he had half expected from her, she turned to him with a most dazzling smile.