GUARDIAN ANGELS At seven o'clock Captain Baster took his leave to dine at his inn.

Of his own accord he promised faithfully to return at nine sharp.

He left the house a proud and happy man, for he knew that he had been shining before Mrs.Dangerfield with uncommon brilliance.
He was not by any means blind to her charm and beauty, for though she was four years older than he, she contrived never to look less than two years younger, and that without any aid from the cosmetic arts.

But he chiefly saw in her an admirable ladder to those social heights to which his ardent soul aspired to climb.

She had but to return to the polite world from which the loss of her husband and her straightened circumstances had removed her, to find herself a popular woman with a host of friends in the exalted circles Captain Baster burned to adorn.
Yet it must not for a moment be supposed that he was proposing a mercenary marriage for her; he was sure that she loved him, for he felt rather than knew that with women he was irresistible.
It was not love, however, that knitted Mrs.Dangerfield's brow in a troubled frown as she dressed; nor was it love that caused her to select to wear that evening one of her oldest and dowdiest gowns, a gown with which she had never been truly pleased.