ey did
whenever she was emotionally moved, the doctor had come round the table
and put both his arms about her.

"Too young for you? Not a bit!" he said heartily. "You're better-looking
then you ever were, Jennie; and if you weren't you're the only woman for
me, anyhow. Don't you think I realize what this exile means to you and
that you're doing it for me?"

"I--I don't mind it."

"Yes, you do. To-night we'll go out and make a night of it, shall we?
Supper at the Grand, the theater, and then the Tabarin, eh?"

She loosened herself from his arms.

"What shall I wear? Those horrible things the children bought me--"

"Throw 'em away."

"They're not worn at all."

"Throw them out. Get rid of the things the children got you. Go out
to-morrow and buy something you like--not that I don't like you in
anything or without--"

"Frank!"

"Be happy, that's the thing. It's the first Christmas without the
family, and I miss them too. But we're together, dear. That's the big
thing. Merry Christmas."

An auspicious opening, that, to Christmas-Day. And they had carried
out the program as outlined. Mrs. Boyer had enjoyed it, albeit a bit
horrified at the Christmas gayety at the Tabarin.

The next morning, however, she awakened with a keen reaction. Her head
ached. She had a sense of taint over her. She was virtue rampant
again, as on the day she had first visited the old lodge in the
Siebensternstrasse.

It is hardly astonishing that by association of ideas Harmony came
into her mind again, a brand that might even yet be snatched from the
burning. She had been a bit hasty before, she admitted to herself. There
was a woman doctor named Gates, although her address at the club was
given as Pension Schwarz. She determined to do her shopping early and
then to visit the house in the Siebensternstrasse. She was not a hard
woman, for all her inflexible morality, and more than once she had
had an uneasy memory of Harmony's bewildered, almost stricken face
the afternoon of her visit. She had been a watchful mother over a not
particularly handsome family of daughters. This lovely young girl needed
mothering and she had refused it. She would go back, and if she found
she had been wrong and the girl was deserving and honest, she would see
what could be done.

The day was wretched. The snow had turned to rain. Mrs. Boyer, shopping,
dragged wet skirts and damp feet from store to store. She found nothing
that she cared for after all.