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Accepting this counsel with suitable expressions, they returned to the charge, addressed the proprietor of Number 37 by his official title and delivered the most gratifying opinions regarding his artistry.

“That,” said the Mordaunt Estate, wiping his painty hands on his knees with brilliant results, as he turned a fat and smiling face to them, “is after the R. Noovo style. I dunno who R. Noovo was, but he’s a bear for color. Are you artists?”

“We’re house-hunters,” explained the young man.

“As for tenants,” said the Mordaunt Estate, “I take ’em or leave ’em as I like ’em or don’t. I like you folks. You got an eye for a tasty bit of colorin’. Eight rooms, bath, and kitchen. By the week in case we don’t suit each other. Very choice and classy for a young married couple. Eight dollars, in advance. Prices for R. Noovo dwellings has riz.”

“We’re not married,” said the young man.

“Hey? Whaddye mean, not married?” demanded that highly respectable institution, the Mordaunt Estate, severely. His expression mollified as he turned to the butterfly. “Aimin’ to be, I s’pose.”

“We only met this morning; so we haven’t decided yet,” answered the young man. “At least,” he added blandly, as his companion seemed to be struggling for utterance, “she hasn’t informed me of her decision, if she has made it.”

Bewilderment spread like a gray mist across the painty features of the Mordaunt Estate. “Nothin’ doin’,” he began, “until–“

“Don’t decide hastily,” adjured the young man. “Take this coin.” He forced a half-dollar into the reluctant hand of the decorator.

“Nothin’ doin’ on account, either. Pay as you enter.”

“Only one of us is going to enter. The coin decides. Spin it. Your call,” he said to the butterfly.

“Heads,” cried the butterfly.

“Tails,” proclaimed the arbiter, as the silver shivered into silence on the flagging.

“Then the house is yours,” said the butterfly. “Good luck go with it.” She smiled, gamely covering her disappointment.

“I don’t want it,” returned the young man.

“Play fair,” she exhorted him. “We both agreed solemnly to stand by the toss. Didn’t we?”

“What did we agree?”

“That the winner should have the choice.”

“Very well. I won, didn’t I?”

“You certainly did.”

“And I choose not to take the house,” he declared triumphantly. “It’s a very nice house, but”–he shaded his eyes as he directed them upon the proud-pied facade, blinking significantly–“I’d have to wear smoked glasses if I lived in it, and they don’t suit my style of beauty.”

“You’d not get it now, young feller, if you was to go down on your knees with a thousand dollars in each hand,” asserted the offended Estate.

“See!” said the young man to the butterfly. “Fate decides for you.”

“But what will you do?” she asked solicitously.

“Perhaps I can find some other place in the Square.”

She held out her hand. “You’ve been very nice and helpful, but–I think not. Good-bye.”

He regarded the hand blankly. “Not–what?”

“Not here in this Square, if you don’t mind.”

“But where else is there?” he asked piteously. “You know yourself there are countless thousands of homeless drifters floating around on this teeming island in vans, with no place to land.”

“Try Jersey. Or Brooklyn,” was her hopeful suggestion.

“‘And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea,'”

he quoted with dramatic intonation, adding helpfully: “Matthew Arnold. Or is it Arnold Bennett? Anyway, think how far away those places are,” he pleaded. “From you!” he concluded.

A little decided frown crept between her eyebrows. “I’ve accepted you as a gentleman on trust,” she began, when he broke in:

“Don’t do it. It’s a fearfully depressing thing to be reminded that you’re a gentleman on trust and expected to live up to it. Think how it cramps one’s style, not to mention limiting one’s choice of real estate. A gentleman may stake his future happiness and his hope of a home on the toss of a coin, but he mustn’t presume to want to see the other party to the gamble again, even if she’s the only thing in the whole sweep of his horizon worth seeing. Is that fair? Where is Eternal Justice, I ask you, when such things–“