Siege,

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Chapter One

Down the broad avenue leading to the bridge the barouche rolled majestically. A truly elegant barouche it was, drawn frettingly by what earlier generations would have called ‘‘a spanking pair of blacks.” A third black drove them, grandly sober in maroon and the gleam of a tall hat. The turnout pre-empted the middle of the road, thus obliging automobiles meeting it on their way homeward from the newly established Country Club to sheer far over toward the edge, which evolution they performed with plenty of margin to spare. Even when the equipage took the straitened bridgeway it maintained its vantage as of divine right; then the humbled creatures of mere mechanism must slow down to a creep, hugging the massive stone rails.

All this seemed to the various car owners, chauffeurs, and casual operatives quite proper and natural, if inconvenient, since the superb and anachronistic carriage belonged to the Ruylands and it was Ruyland politics that had established the roadway, Ruyland generosity that had built the bridge, Ruyland backing that supported the Country Club to which the avenue gave access, and Ruyland overlordship that had attached the Ruyland name to all of them.

In the barouche sat the fine flower of Ruylandism.

“Let ’em out, Carter,” she directed as the bridge was passed.

I

“Yassum, Mis’ Ruylan’,” answered the tall old negro worshipfully.

As the high steppers gave over their caracoling and settled down to the level of speed, she tilted her head back a little and drew in the early summer softness with a strong lust of living that sent the quick color flushing through her face. A face of beauty, even of splendor, in its own type. The lines were firmly molded below the lustrous hair. Pride and courage and humor were readable in the delicate mouth, firm over small and even teeth. The chin was non-significant and soft, a humanizing touch to a magnificence which might otherwise have been too rigid. She sat erect and easy. As a sailor gives to the dip and plunge of the washed deck, so she yielded her form, unconsciously graceful, to the lurch of the vehicle as it took the curves.

Everything about her was of the superlative degree of fineness—turnout, clothes, hair, teeth—all from the best markets in the world except the keenly luminous eyes, her own and undimmed by seventy years of eager if cynical contemplation of life. She looked almost her age and was insolently content to be herself without evasion. What, indeed, could the years do to her!

“Why are you slowing up, Carter?” she asked presently.

“Temp’r’ry bridge acrost Shangamawket Creek, Mis’ Ruylan’,” said the coachman, with an effect of apologizing for it.

The rapid honking of a horn behind them mingled with his explanation. A car was desirous of reaching the narrow way ahead of them. [IIl-advisedly, Carter turned his head, to be met with a chill glance and the reproof:

“Pay attention to your horses, man!”

“Yassum, Mis’ Ruylan’; yassum, ma’am. I reckoned it sounded lak the way Mist’ Kennion blow his hawn.”

“Did it, indeed! My nephew’s haste can hardly be vitally important even to himself.”

“Vassum,” assented the servitor.

“FHonk-honk! Honk! MHonk-honk-honk! H-o-N-xhonk!” blared the car behind in the accents of indignation. }

The fine flower of the Ruylands showed a slightly enhanced color, as the horses clattered upon the bridge, thereby shutting off the clamorous motor from any hope of passing. ‘Drive slowly, Carter,” she directed. “Drive quite slowly.”

“Yassum, Mis’ Ruylan’.” Inwardly Carter reflected: “That Mist’? Kennion boy must have fool-in-the-haid to try ’n’ hustle Mis’ Ruylan’; that’s whut that boy got!”

After one more faltering appeal, the automobile gave it up and trundled behind at a wheelbarrow pace, occasionally voicing a perfunctory “Snaw-w-w-w-wk!”’ of protest. But at the far end it pushed so smartly past the obstacle that it actually brushed the overhanging shield of the barouche. ‘“Br-r-ra-a-a-a-ah!” trumpeted the horn. _The occupant of the barouche turned neither head nor eye. She merely smiled thinly. The smile faded as a girl’s voice, very clear and with an intonation not to be misconstrued, floated back to her: “Thank you so much.” And at the same moment Kennion Ruyland’s polite “Good afternoon, aunt.”

“Look where you’re going, you fool.”

The retort was directed to the girl who was at the wheel. The girl looked, gave a strangled cry, and threw all her young strength upon the wheel, twisting it far to the right. A fuzzy cat, loping out from the wayside ditch with something in its mouth, had run under the car, followed by a little, lean, wailing, gingham-clad girl. There was a light shock. The driver of the car jammed on her brakes as she turned, squirmed out from behind

A | SILEGE the wheel, and precipitated herself into the roadway as swiftly as Kennion Ruyland unfolded his lank legs and landed, on his side. The pair of blacks reared and shied away from the apparition which had alighted almost under their startled noses. But she paid no heed. Dropping to her knees, she peered fearfully beneath the car. Nothing was to be seen except her companion’s strained face on the other side. She rose and ran to the rear. There, hideously crumpled over to one side, like an injured spider, the child was racking and hitching her way to the refuge of the ditch, driven by the blind, piteous instinct of the fugitive to get away from that which had hurt it. At the edge of the grass the girl overtook her, snatched her into strong arms, cradled her, brooded over her. “Oh, baby, baby! Have I killed you?”

“Tt hurts,” whimpered the little one.

“Where does it hurt?”

She pressed her two hands to her side and looked up into the brilliant, tremulous face above her. ‘There.”

“Let me see.”

‘‘Where’s my mousie?” quavered the child. ‘The bad cat had it.”

Out from the dust of the road where it had been dropped the mouse dragged itself toward the haven of the ditch. In ludicrous and heart-breaking travesty of its little mistress, the tiny creature humped and sprangled until it reached the grass. The injured child saw it.

“My mousie! Get it for me.”

Kennion Ruyland picked it up. It struggled feebly. “Its back is broken,” he said gently. ‘“I’d better kill it.”

“No, no, no!” shrieked the child. ‘Give me my mousie! Oh, I hate you! I hate you! Ill always hate you!” She buried her face against the neck of the young girl, groping with her free hand for her pet. The man closed the questing fingers around it.

“We'll take her to the hospital,” he said to his companion. “Give her to me.”

“No,” denied the child, clinging.

“You drive, Kennion,” directed the girl. “T’ll hold er:

As the young man settled himself to the wheel a steady and quiet voice from the barouche said, with an indefinable accent of threat: “If the child dies, I’ll see that justice is done upon you, young woman.”

“Tt was my fault, aunt,” claimed Kennion.

“How your fault?”? came the disdainful query.

“T grabbed the wheel.”

“Oh, don’t stop to lie to her now,” cried the girl. “TLet’s get to the hospital.”

Eight minutes later the Ruyland Memorial Hospital admitted an injured child and a dead mouse.

When Kennion Ruyland emerged, the barouche was blocking his car, which he had backed into an embrasure.

“Get out of my way, Carter,” he ordered, climbing to the seat.

“Vassuh,” assented the negro with ready lip-service, but making no motion toward the lines. Feeling the bright and savage eyes behind him boring into his back, he knew too much to do so.

“Kennion.”

“Tell that d—d nigger of yours to go ahead, Aunt _ Augusta.” |

“Who was that young woman?”

“That girl is Fredericka Gage.”

“‘She’s. painted.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Aunt Augusta! I want to get to Dr. Stanley.”

“Ts the child’s condition serious?”

“No. But they may have to operate. And I want the

best man.”

“Dr. Corney of the hospital staff is perfectly’ competent. Before having him appointed surgeon I made inquiries which satis—”’

With a snarl of profanity he jumped down and advanced upon the horses to swing them aside. Augusta Ruyland said no word. But her hand moved to and gripped the long carriage whip in front of her; her eyes were glittering threats. For a moment the young man stood uncertain, between shame and fury, then whirled about, sprinted across the lawn, and swung himself to the step of a passing trolley. His aunt, watching him with grim regard, settled herself in her seat to wait. Patience, if one might judge from the expression on her face, was more than a virtue with her; it was an enjoyment. It brought its own reward in the course of a few minutes when the responsible author of the accident appeared in the doorway. At once she ran over to the carriage.

“She’s all right,” she announced eagerly. ‘“There’s no permanent injury, though the shoulder has to be carefully handled.”

“Who are you?”

The girl drew back, stiffening. ‘I beg your pardon.”

“T said: ‘Who are you?’ ”

The face into which the old lady haughtily stared changed subtly. A small smile flickered about the lips.

“Vou mean ‘Who the hell are you,’ don’t you?”

Eye met eye in appraisal and challenge, and those of youth were not brighter nor bolder than those of age.

“Ah! Now I appreciate what you are, at least.”

The girl shook her tawny head. ‘Don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions,” she advised. Then, to herself: “Oh, where is Kennion?”

cy believe that he went for a wholly superfluous surgeon—in a trolley.”

“In a—” The girl’s glance fell upon the blockaded runabout. ‘‘What’s the matter with his car?”

“There was not room to pass. And I did not choose to make room until certain questions had been satisfactorily answered.”

“T’d have run you down,” asserted the other in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.

“A habit of yours, apparently.”

The shot went deep. Color ebbed momentarily from the upturned face. “You must be Kennion’s Aunt Augusta. I hadn’t thought of it before.”

“T am Mrs. Hasleton Ruyland.”

“Of course. Nobody else would do a thing like that.”

“Am I to infer that some person has been describing my character for your benefit?”

“T’ve certainly heard of you.”

“From whom, may I ask?”

“It might be almost any one, mightn’t it? You must be much discussed.”

“My grandnephewe Answer me!”

Quite gravely the catechized one raised her right hand to the level of her ear, the palm toward Mrs. Ruyland. “The witness being’ duly sworn—’”’

“So you’ve been in the witness box. Doubtless as prisoner.” The stroke was swift and perhaps surer than the enemy at first realized. “And the charge? Manslaughter? Or only reckless driving?”

Again the girl flinched. This foe was formidable, and only too patently a foe. While she sought for a retort a lank, loose-jointed figure came hurrying across the lawn. Relief flashed into her eyes.

“Here’s Kennion!”’

“Kennion? What is my nephew to you?”

“Why not ask him?”

“Where did you ever chance to meet him?” pursued

8 STEGek the old woman. The disparagement in the tone made the implication plain enough: where could such a creature as you have become so well acquainted with the nephew of Mrs. Hasleton Ruyland?

The girl chose to answer the subsurface query. Her gaze became artfully limpid, childlike, ingenuous.

“Oh,” she cooed, “I picked him up in a road-house.”

And this was true.

Chapter Two

It had happened three weeks before at the House in the Park. Jazzy music filled the air with clamor. Jazzy people were scattered thinly among the scores of small tables, watching others writhe and wriggle together on the slippery floor, for it was the year when fashions in dancing were at their most grotesque. The scene was one of light and revelry, of youth and gayety freed from the shackles of convention and relaxed in the atmosphere of true Bohemianism; a legend at the top of the menu, which lay on the corner table before the long, lean, lone young man, told the world that it was all that, in so many words. The immediate world gave him the impression of laboring conscientiously if painfully to live up to it. It made him feel old and stale. When one feels old and stale at twenty-six it usually means that one is bored. The long, lean, lone young man was bored. For relief from the atmosphere of true Bohemianism he bent toward the window, outside which a vast spread of wistaria wreathed its blossoming tentacles, and expanded his chest with a deep intake of mingled fried onions and expensive perfumery. The draught was moving the wrong way. :

“Breath-of-New-York,” he muttered. “How the devil did I ever get here?”

It was a rhetorical question. He had come in a taxi because he had nothing else to do that he specially wanted to do, and the evening was hot, and the Park looked deceptively cool. In point of fact, there was seldom _ anything to do that he specially wanted to do. Certainly 9

IO SIEGE he didn’t want to be there at that table. Nothing on the bill of fare impressed him much except the prices. He had a healthy and quite un-American distaste for being swindled, and chicken croquettes at the price of ortolan’s tongues seemed to him very much on that order. Inertia alone prevented him from getting out of the place. He was excessively bored.

Presently he was glad that he hadn’t. Amusement promised. It came in the form of a whirlwind aggregation that swept in, rushed three tables together, anticipating the assistance of the hurrying and protestant waiters, and flopped into the chairs which its members had rifled from their proper places. A queerly assorted company it was, consisting of five youths and one girl. All were in evening dress, the youths in the extreme of white waistcoats and ties, the girl a blade of glowing flesh sheathed in black. Two of the lot were wilted; one was drunk; yet they brought with them a refreshment of the devitalized atmosphere. The lone diner in the corner caught, or thought he caught, a clear whiff — of the wistaria momentarily dominant over the onion- — and-perfumery reek.

The girl was saying: ‘‘No; not for me, Flicker. And Bobby’s had enough. Horse’s neck for mine.” The commonplace words were distinguished by a strange undulant rhythm of enunciation, suggesting—what? The slow swell of waves on a smooth beach? No. The even breath of breezes among verdure? Not quite that either. Ah! He had it now. Swallow’s flight; the swoop and lift of it translated into sound.

“Whose dance?” she said, and the words themselves stretched upon their toes and were expectant. A broken chorus of claims answered. ‘The girl flapped desperate hands at her concealed ears. “Oh, oh! Stop it! Somebody got dice? High throw takes me.”

SIEGE II

“Tt was my next when we broke up the party,” complained a footballish giant.

“Then you get first throw. But we didn’t break up the party.”

“Didn’t we! Maybe you think that five men and the pick of the girls, right out of the middle of the evening—”

“Mabel will be furious. You oughtn’t to have all come.”

“You dared us.”

“Poor little weaklings!” she derided them. ‘“Daren’t refuse a dare; ’fraid of being bum sports.”

“That’s a rotten way to put it,” objected the youth called Flicker. “A man can’t be a perfect gent all the evening. Roll high, you high rollers!” He flung them out with a flourish, following their course with snapping fingers. Something was wrong with his magic. The dice turned up a three and an ace. “Oh, hell,” he murmured disconsolately.

“This is it,” decided the girl. “High throw, first dance, and then he goes back to Mabel’s. Next highest, next dance, and he follows.”

“What about the survivor?” demanded a small blone Adonis. ‘He brings you back?”

“He takes me home.”

“What!” “Step off it!” ‘“You’re not going to shake us that way.” “Mabel will give us the everlasting razzdazz.” “Why, it ain’t midnight yet.”

Above the broken chorus rose the triumph of Flicker. “Wouldn’t sell my li’l’ four for a thousand dollars.”

But the protests continued until the girl put a stop to them with an ee: “No, no, vo! It’s either that or we all go back now.’

Amusedly the onlooker wondered at her easy tyranny. Thus, he reflected, a Du Barry might have overmistressed it among the adorers of her beauty, a Manon in her lesser degree, a Lalage over her poets, an Aspasia with her philosophers, a Cleopatra among her courtiers, and so backward along the line of imperious beauties to the first tyrant Lilith. But this girl was not beautiful; not by any standards of his knowledge. The mouth was too wide, the face too foreshortened, the eyes too drooping. Yet there was something in her personality that stood out like flame in darkness, illuminating all around it; something which he groped to define, as he had sought for a simile for her speech. Again he had it. It was a robustness not of physique, but rather of femininity. There was in it no grossness, no effort of appeal. The quality was effluent from her as the odor from a sunimpregnated flower.

It was then that he began to sketch her surreptitiously on the back of the menu card.

Quite useless, he well knew, to attempt to fix that special quality of hers. Yet, though it were only an idle and picturesque memory to preserve, he wanted it.

Meantime, amidst an intensity of interest, all had made their throws, and there was open lamentation from the unfortunate Flicker, for the unsteady member known as Bobby had, after breathing alcoholically upon the dice, turned up a pair of aces. At once there were objections, not over-considerate of the winner’s personal feelings.

“He’s too pickled to take you home.” “You'll have to come back to the party, now.” ‘“Let’s throw again to see who waits with him.” ‘That was only one round, anyway; it ought to be horses.”

“Don’t be stupid,” adjured the girl. ‘“I can take care of Bobby. I’ve done it before, haven’t I? And some of the rest of you too,” she added witheringly.

The subject of the reflections upon his capacity as an

SIEGE iz escort rose to his feet, took a long, slow drink of ice water, set foot to a crack, walked it accurately and with extreme care to the center of the floor and returned, amidst cheers. He addressed himself solely to the girl, ‘““How’s that?”

“Perfectly all right.”

He then swept the table with a contemptuous look. ““S-s-s-scum!” he barked, and lapsed into contented silence.

Dancing, the girl afforded to the sketcher view after _ view of profile, full face, and every other angle, until, after disgustedly setting aside half a dozen failures (for which he had denuded the neighboring tables of menus), he realized with a thrill that he had caught something of the poise of her head and shoulders. Further, he perceived that she knew what he was doing, saw her chin go up a little, guessed that she was taking what she regarded as her most effective pose. It wasn’t. He switched to the gracious curve of her arm, and got it in one long, diminishing stroke. For a time she seemed to be disregarding him wholly; then, when all her escorts but the fortunate survivor had reluctantly departed, he became aware that she was going to accost him. What should be his role? Culprit, with ready apology? Or artist, secure in the inalienable right of the cult to seize upon charm and grace, wherever found, for trans-propriation to the general interest? At the second circling of the floor she stopped with her partner. The youth stepped forward. It was at once evident that, whatever his condition, he was reliably a gentleman. His charm was almost as palpable in its way as the girl’s. When he spoke it was with a determined, though not wholly successful, effort at voice control. “Beg pardon, but you’ve been—unh!—drawing a picture?”

I4 SIEGE

Ves.”

“Mind showin’ it to—interestin-—unh!—interested stranger?”

“Tt’s quite unfinished.”

“Haffa doz’n pictures,” commented the youth in well-bred surprise, glancing at the table. ‘Very pretty, but not finished, eh?”

The girl was standing alcof, facing outward toward the dancing floor. Now she turned. The sketcher at once clambered to his feet, upsetting the nearest chair. The girl smiled.

“°S beautiful, this one,” pursued her escort, fingering the least successful effort of the lot. “Give you—unh! —fiffy dollars for it.”

“It’s not for sale,” replied the other, good-humoredly.

“Beg your pardon. See you’re—unh!—distinguished amateur.”

“Not even that.”

“Run away, Bobby.” The cool assurance of the girl’s speech introduced a new element.

“All right, if you say so. But lemme—unh!—present—” He turned courteously to the other man. “Beg pardon, but I didn’t get your name.”

“Run away, Bobby,” repeated the girl without change of emphasis.

Off trotted the faithful one with a doglike look of loyalty.

“You say they’re not for sale?”

The sketcher laughed. ‘They have no value.” Drawing out a chair, he said: “May I offer you—”

“Nothing, thank you. You sit down. Please.”

“‘Slavish obedience seems to be what you specialize in. Therefore—” And he sat.

‘She swiftly selected that one of the discarded experiments upon which he had first worked. “Do you mind? If you’d shade a little more, just under the turn of the chin, |)\Phere,”’

“Like that?”

“Carry it around further. You’ve tried to make me pretty. I’m not pretty.”

“‘Aren’t you?” he responded absently, stroking carefully with his pencil.

“Can’t you see I’m not?”

“Ves. You don’t need to be.”

“T rather like that. Though it doesn’t sound much like a compliment, does it? Don’t you see, now, how much better that is?”

“Vou’re right. You know something about drawing, yourself. Have you sat?”

“Sat? Oh, yes.” She put on an impertinently English accent. ‘What price the little skit now?”

He leaned back to look up at her speculatively. “Oh, the usual would bring it.”

“Really?”

“And truly.”

She bent and kissed him on the mouth.

“That’s what I’d call an honest, square, businesslike, value-given-and-received kiss,” he observed, putting the picture into her hand.

“What did you expect?”

“Not so much, certainly. I’ve been overpaid.”

“That’s banal. I didn’t think you’d be banal.”

“Why note”

“Your looks,” she flashed back. ‘I’m disappointed.”

“In your bargain?”

“No. Not in the picture.”

“T am, though. I haven’t got it. Not half of it. Not a tenth of it.”

“VYou’ve got something of me,” she mused. ‘And something else that isn’t me. I wonder what you meant. I wonder why you put it in.”

“Tf you'll tell me what you think it is—”

Her strong brows quivered. “I’m not sure that I know. If I do—”

“Well?”

“T shouldn’t tell you now.”

“Now?” he repeated. ‘“Then there’s to be a Then?”

Instead of answering directly, she said: ‘You haven’t signed it.”

“Oh, you want it signed?” He scrawled the name “K. G. Ruyland”’; then, looking up and catching her quizzical gaze, added ‘“‘Patroons’ Club,” hesitated, and appended still a third line “Until Friday.”

She nodded her acknowledgments.

‘“‘Are you all right?” he asked, glancing at the patient Bobby who, by dint of gallant efforts, was waking up in his chair at intervals, only to lapse into uneasy slumbers again.

“Oh, yes! He’s perfectly safe. Good night.”

She did not give him her hand. He was glad of that. It would have been anticlimax. ...

Chapter Three

Wuat manner of girl his acquaintance of the road-house was, Kennion Ruyland did not consider more than casually. There was an assumption in his mind, arising from the general circumstances of their encounter. For the rest, he had found her both charming and amusing, and it was with impatience that he awaited a message from her, and annoyance that he failed to get it. “Until Friday” he had written under his signature. Here it was Friday afternoon and no word. Ah, well, what else was to be expected from that type! He laughed at himself a bit ruefully for having stayed over several trains already, and was in the act of packing when the phone rang. Then he laughed at himself again, realizing that he had actually jumped. The usual preliminaries followed his removal of the receiver.

“Mr. Ruyland? ... Just a moment. ... A lady, to speak with you. ... Yes; there’s Mr. Ruyland. Go ahead.” Then a level voice, tonelessly unlike the buoyant irregularity of his memory, said accusingly:

“Why haven’t you called me up before?”

“Who is it?”

“Mary. Didn’t you get my message?”

“Mary!” he exclaimed. ‘When did you get back?”

“Last week. You sound more astonished than pleased. Whom did you hope it was?”

“Nobody. I didn’t know any one particularly knew I was here.”

“Did you hope’—now the flatness went out of the

17 :

18 SB Gre voice and the words took wing—“that it was the subject of your sketchP”

‘You little fiend! And is your name Mary?”

“Far from it.”

“Why haven’t you phoned before?”

“Experiment. To see if you’d wait over.”

“T didn’t. Not for that.”

“So I’see.”

“Oh, well, have it your own way.” Evidently this was to be warfare. Better look to his weapons, he guessed, if he was to emerge with credit against a challenger of this apparent mettle. ‘“‘What’s next?”

“Cocktails at six.”

“Listens reasonable. And then take you out to dinner?”

“My heart is torn to ribbons, but I have another engagement.”

“Bad news. Where’s your flat?”

“Flat? Oh, I live at—”

“Should I have said ‘apartment’? I’ve been a foreigner so long. And I thought all New Yorkers lived in them now,” he added hastily, trying to cover his tracks.

“T don’t. I live in a hat box.” She gave him an address just off Lexington Avenue.

“Perfect, geographically. But it lacks one detail.”

“IT see. Mrs. Gage is the open sesame name.”

“Mrs. Ga— Oh, of course!” He wondered, without cynicism, whether there was a ‘““Mr. Gage” and suspected that his slip had been interpreted when he heard the stifled laughter that preceded the query: “Why ‘of course’?”’

“Just my luck, I mean.”

“Not so torpid,” she approved. “Then I’ll expect you.” ‘

CT E.G E | 19

“Five fifty-nine will find me on the curbstone encouraging the hands of my watch.”

The house, upon such cursory inspection from the outside as might be achieved by one who walked past it three separate times, was what, in Paris, would be called the bijou type. Quite in the picture, thought Ruyland. Inside, however, when he was admitted upon the stroke of six, it showed a soberer taste than he had foreseen. Flowers were there in plenty, some good rugs, and a couple of well-chosen pictures.

“All right, Delia; I’m coming down,” said the voice, and the owner came breezing in, both hands clasped behind her.

“Who is Mary?” she demanded.

“How did you know there was a Mary?”

“Every well-conducted young man has one somewhere, if it’s only a sister. It’s a safe bet. Shall I apologize for getting a rise out of you? No, I shan’t.”

“How do you know I’m a well-conducted young man?”

Her eyes drooped, but he was watchful enough to catch the flicker of mirth in them. “Now youw’re trying to excite my hopes. What would Mary say?”

“Lord knows! Mary’s my cousin. Age, thirty-seven. Face, honest. Children, five.”

“Good-by, Mary! Have you finished up any of the other sketches?’”

“No. I’m waiting to study the subject further.”

“How about that train to—wherever it is?”

“Habersham.”

“Glory! Are you one of the Habersham Ruylands?”’

“I’m certainly from that exact spot.”

“T might have known. Any one as young as you and belonging to the Patroons. How does it feel to be that way?”

‘Are you having a good time guying me?”

“Not so good! You’re too suspicious. Inside I expect you’re all swelled up with pride and riches and traditions and all that sorta thing. Being the oldest family in New England that’s successively manufactured paper collars for rag dolls, generation after generation for a couple of hundred years, ought to give you a special atmosphere. I wonder why you dress it up the way you do. What time does your train go?”

“Seven.”

“Wrong. You asked me to dinner.”

“Right. You refused.”

“Suppose I’d changed my mind.”

“The New Haven Railroad hasn’t changed its.”

“Meaning that since the train goes at seven—”’

“T go too. Exactly.”

‘“Sternly immovable will power. I believe you're trying to make me love you.”

“Such is my modest hope.”

“He scoots to conquer. I will say that you’re better than you looked at first sight. What’s wrong with that armchair you’re occupying?”’

“T thought there might be room for two on that divan.”

“When there is, I’ll send you a radio. And here, at the opportune moment, comes Propriety’s very self.”

A small, dumpy, middle-aged woman entered. She was very plain, quite near-sighted, limped a little from premature rheumatism, and wore clothing primarily designed for comfort; but at the first sound of her voice and estimate of her manner, all preconceived notions vaguely entertained by young Mr. Ruyland as to the nature of the establishment he was in came tumbling about his ears with a crash. That his lower jaw didn’t crash with them was owing only to the blessed fact that it was firmly fastened to the upper. Whether in Vienna, Paris, Nagasaki, or the Aleutian Islands, there was no possibility of mistaking this little, quiet, unassertive lady for anything ‘other than what she was. The visitor retracted his betraying jaw sufficiently to murmur an acknowledgment of the introduction, while ardently hoping, for his future comfort, that the girl had noticed nothing.