It is the first thing
she would have thought of. If you are not an impostor and an
adventuress present your credentials and I will ask your pardon."

"Judge Trent has my credentials. Now, if you will excuse me----"

"I will not excuse you. I will get to the depth of all this mystery.
I abominate mystery. It is vulgar and stupid. You will tell me who
you are, or I will set the newspapers on your track. They'll soon
ferret it out. I've only to say the word."

"Ah!" The lady seemed to falter for a moment. She looked
speculatively at the indignant old face opposite, then made a vague
little gesture toward her hair, and dropped her eyes. "No," she said
softly. "Don't--please." She raised her eyes once more and looked
straight into Mrs. Oglethorpe's. The two women stood staring at each
other for several seconds. Mrs. Oglethorpe's eyes blinked, her jaw
fell. Then she drew herself up in her most impressive manner.

"Good day," she said. "Your pardon for the intrusion," and although
her voice had trembled, she swept majestically down the hall. The
unwilling hostess touched a bell and a footman opened the door.

VI

Three weeks passed. There were almost twice as many first-nights.
"Mary Ogden," as Clavering called her for want of the truth, was at
each. She never rose in her seat again, and, indeed, seemed to seek
inconspicuousness, but she was always in the second or third row of the
orchestra, and she wore a different gown on each occasion. As she
entered after the curtain rose and stole out before it went down for
the last time, few but those in the adjacent seats and boxes were
edified by any details of those charming creations, although it was
noticeable that the visiting of both sexes was most active in her
neighborhood.

For by this time she was "the talk of the town," or of that important
and excessively active-minded section of Greater New York represented
at first-nights. The columnists had commented on her. One had indited
ten lines of free verse in her honor, another had soared on the wings
of seventeenth century English into a panegyric on her beauty and her
halo of mystery. A poet-editor-wit had cleped her "The Silent Drama."
Had it been wartime she would inevitably have been set down as a spy,
and as it was there were dark inferences that she was a Bolshevik agent
who had smuggled vast sums of money into the country and passed it on
to the Reds. There were those who opined she