inches, wearing the sympathy of my friends to tatters."

But as yet he dared not name the alternative.

He stuffed the letter into his pocket, and passed on to the elevator
gates, meaning to go up to the library and there have his drink and read
his letter and write the answer, in peace and quiet. The problem of that
answer obsessed his thoughts. It would be hard--hard to write--that
letter that meant the breaking of a woman's faithful heart.

The elevator kept him waiting a moment or two, just round the corner
from the grill-room door, whence came a sound of voices talking and
laughing. One was Billy Hamilton's unmistakable semi-jocular drawl.
Whitaker knew it without thinking of it, even as he heard what was being
said without, at first, comprehending--heard and afterwards remembered
in vivid detail.

"Seems to be the open season for runaways," Hamilton was saying. "It's
only a few days since Thurlow Ladislas's daughter--what's her
name?--Mary--took the bit between her teeth and bolted with the old
man's chauffeur."

Somebody asked: "How far did they get before old Ladislas caught up?"

"He didn't give chase. He's not that kind. If he was put to it, old
Thurlow could play the unforgiving parent in a melodrama without any
make-up whatever."

"That's right," little Fiske's voice put in. "Chap I know on the
_Herald_--reporter--was sent to interview him, but old Ladislas told him
quite civilly that he'd been misinformed--he hadn't any daughter named
Mary. Meaning, of course, that the girl had defied him, and that his
doors were thenceforth barred to her."

"He's just like that," said Hamilton. "Remember his other daughter,
Grace, eloping with young Pettit a few years ago? Old Ladislas had a
down on Pettit--who's a decent enough kid, notwithstanding--so Grace was
promptly disowned and cast into the outer darkness, where there's
weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, because Pettit's only
something-on-a-small-salary in the diplomatic service, and they've no
hope of ever touching a penny of the Ladislas coin."

"But what became of them--Mary and the stoker-person?"

"Nobody knows, except possibly themselves. They're laying low
and--probably--getting first-hand information as to the quantity of
cheese and kisses they can afford on chauffeur's pay."

"What's she like, this Mary-quite-contrary?" inquired George Brenton's
voice. "Anybody ever see her?"

"Oh, nothing but a kid," said little Fiske. "I used to s