waited, frozen, until he appeared in
the doorway.

"I thought I heard you stirring down here and that it perhaps meant
breakfast. Paula won't be down, I suppose, for hours. She fell asleep
about four o'clock and has been sleeping quietly ever since."

This was exactly like Paula, of course. She was the vortex of the
whole tempest, but when she had thoroughly exhausted the emotional
possibilities of it she sank into peaceful slumber like a baby after
a hard cry.

No wonder she was too much for these two Wollastons who sat now with dry
throats and tremulous hands over the mockery of breakfast! Mary, although
she knew, asked her father whether he wanted his coffee clear or with
cream in it and having thus broken the spell, went on with a gasp:

"I'm glad Paula isn't coming down. It gives you a better chance to tell
me just how you feel about my having interfered. I did run away last
night. You guessed that, I suppose. But it wasn't to evade it altogether.
My--whipping, you know."

It had an odd effect on both of them, this reference to her childhood;
her hand moved round the table rim and covered his which rested on the
edge of it.

"Did your mother ever punish you?" he asked. "Corporeally? It's my
recollection that she did not. I was always the executioner. I doubt now
if that was quite fair."

"Perhaps not," she asserted dubiously. "In general it isn't fair of
course. It probably wasn't in the case of Rush. But with me,--I don't
think I could have borne it to have mother beat me. It would have seemed
an insufferable affront. I'd have hated her for it. But there was a sort
of satisfaction in having you do it."

After another moment of silence she smiled and added, "I suppose a
Freudian would carry off an admission like that to his cave and gnaw over
it for hours."

He stared at her, shocked, incredulous. "What do you know about Freud?"
he demanded.

"One couldn't live for two years within a hundred yards of Washington
Square without knowing at least as much about it as that," she told
him,--and was glad of the entrance of the maid with another installment
of
the breakfast. There was no more talk between them during the meal. But
at the end of it she faced him resolutely.

"We must have this out, dad. And isn't now as good a time as any?"

He followed her out into the veranda but the sounds from the dining-room,
where the maid had come in to clear away the breakfast, disturbed him so
Mary suggested a walk