“I don’t know this woman and I don’t want to know her, but I do know you will have to give her up. Your mother has had her investigated and has found out several things, either one of which is sufficient to cause me to speak as I do. In the first place she is thirty-six while you are but twenty. In the second she is not in your class socially. She lives in what is known as ‘Across the line.’ Therefore should you marry her you could not expect to raise her to your level; you must lower yourself to hers.” Horton Manners, man of the world, a power in business, a man who had lived and was living, rested his case. Horton, Jr., just out of school, and to whom the above remarks were addressed, looked at his father, then at his mother, and for once his mother failed him. She, a leader in society, had no intention of jeopardizing her position by allowing her son to marry beneath him. The boy pleaded, his father softened and yielded one point. Take a trip around the world, boy, stay away a year, then if at the end of that time you still love this woman, I have nothing further to say. The boy, however was firm and told his parents that he would rather dig ditches than give up Mildred. He leaves to tell his sweetheart what has happened. The woman in the case, Mildred Fontaine, has lived and yet is just beginning to live and consoles herself with the thought that, although she has passed the age before which a woman is supposed to marry, she has found a man she loves and who loves her even though he is but a boy. Horton, Jr., goes to her and tells her his father’s ultimatum and the answer he gave to it. She, worldly wise and knowing that love cannot exist without the proper food, advises him to take the trip. The boy leaves for Paris. Mildred decides that she cannot live without him and plans to bring him back to her. She secures a position as social secretary in the Manners home. She plays upon Manners, Sr., whose weakness is women. She places him in a compromising position with herself and with the aid of Casey, a friendly chauffeur, secures a photograph of it. She shows the father the photograph and he offers her money for it. She refuses and demands the return of the son. He writes a cablegram as dictated, but before sending it he tells her why he objected to the marriage, compares their ages and shows Mildred that in ten years she will be comparatively an old woman while the boy will be just in the prime of life. He pictures to her how unhappy they both would be in a few years’ time. In the end, Mildred, loving the boy as she does, agrees and returns “across the line.” In the meantime the boy has verified all his father’s arguments by falling in love with a girl in Paris.