Anyhow, he wouldn't be hurried and he wouldn't go. But Paula
finally turned a look of despairing appeal upon Mary who thereupon
announced her intention of going to to-night's performance in the park.
She would drive, of course, and would be glad to take Mr. Ware along.
Or, for that matter, she would set him down first wherever he might want
to go. He smiled upon her with the fatuous smile of one who finds he has
made an unexpected conquest and said he would be delighted to accompany
Miss Wollaston anywhere.

She took him, driving pretty fast, to the Moraine Hotel and was glad the
distance was not greater, for after various heavy-handed and unquenchable
preliminaries he kissed her as nearly on the mouth as possible, clinging
to a half-lit cigar the while, just before she whipped around into the
hotel drive. She avoided a collision with one of the stone posts narrowly
enough to startle him into releasing her,--he hadn't realized the turn
was so close--and stopped at the lighted carriage door with a jerk that
left him no option but to get out at once.

She nodded a curt good night and drove back to the park; went to one of
the dressing-rooms and washed her face. Then she came around in front to
hear Edith Mason sing _Romeo and Juliet_. She didn't get just the effect
she anticipated from this lovely performance because Polacco, who is Miss
Mason's husband, came and sat down beside her--there was nothing spidery
about him, thank goodness--and in a running and vivacious commentary
expressed his lively contempt for this opera of Gounod's. At its best it
was bad _Faust_. Its least intolerable melodies were quotations from
_Faust_,--an assertion which he proved from time to time by singing, and
not very softly either, the original themes to the wrath of all who sat
within a twenty-five foot radius of them.

Mary felt grateful to him for giving her something that was not
maddening to think about and after the performance went with him and his
wife to supper so that it was well after midnight before she returned to
the cottage.

It was an ineffable relief to find it dark. Her habit on warm nights was
to sleep on the gloucester swing in the screened veranda and she made it
her bed to-night, though beyond a short uneasy doze of two, she didn't
sleep at all.

At half past eight or so, just after she had sat down to breakfast,
she heard her father coming down the stairs. She tried to call to him
but could command no voice and so