perfectly satisfied."

Even his not very alert ear caught something equivocal in those last
sentences, and he looked at her sharply.

"Oh, I'm worn to ribbons over it!" she exclaimed, and this touch of
apology served for the tearing edge there had been in her voice. "I
couldn't let him see how I feel about it. It would be a sort of relief to
have it settled. That's why I came straight to you to-day."

He tried, but rather feebly, to temporize. We mustn't let haste drive us
farther than we really wanted to go. The matter of drawing the formal
contract, for instance, must be attended with all possible legal
safe-guards, especially when we were dealing with a person whose honor
was perhaps dubitable.

"I thought we might go round to see Rodney Aldrich about it, now," she
said. "He's about the best there is in that line, isn't he? Why don't you
telephone to his office and find out if he's there."

This seemed as good a straw as any to clutch at. The chance of catching
as busy a man as Aldrich with a leisure half hour was very slim. The
recording angel who guarded his wicket gate would probably give them an
appointment for some day next week, and this would leave time for a
confirmatory talk with John. But, unluckily, Rodney was there and would
be glad to see Mrs. Wollaston as soon as she could be brought round.

"Then, that's all right," Paula said with a sigh of relief. "So if you
really believe I'll keep my word and don't mind putting up the money for
me, it's as good as settled."

There was one more question on his tongue. "Does John know that you have
come to me for it?" But this, somehow, he could not force himself to ask.
Implicitly she had already answered it--hadn't she?

"Of course I believe, in you, in everything, my dear Paula. And I'm very
much--touched, that you should have come to me. And my only hope is that
it may turn out to have been altogether for the best."

And there was that.

It was not until late that night that his misgivings as to the part Mary
might have played in this drama really awoke, but when they did he
marveled that they had not occurred to him earlier. He recalled that Mary
had prophesied during their talk at the Saddle and Cycle that Paula would
attribute to her the suggestion--whoever might make it--that an operatic
career for John's wife was desirable and necessary for financial reasons.
She had said too, in that serious measured way of hers, "If Paula ever
saw me coming bet