entrance hall and put on her hat.

CHAPTER VII

Midway between Yolanda and Sausalito Stillman's machine died with
disconcerting suddenness The rain was coming down in sheets. Stillman
got out.

"It's no use," he announced, lifting himself back into his seat. "I
can't do anything in this deluge."

This was the first word that had been said since he and Claire had left
Flint's.

"The worst will be over in a few moments," replied Claire, easily. But
she was far from reassured.

The deluge was _not_ over in a few moments. It kept up with an
ever-increasing violence, until it seemed that even the stalled car
would be compelled to yield to its force. Claire had never seen it rain
harder; the storm had a vindictive fury that reminded her of the
dreadful tempest in "King Lear."

Stillman maintained his usual well-bred calm and smoked cigarettes while
he chattered. He touched on every conceivable subject but the one
uppermost in Claire's mind, until she began to wonder whether delicacy
or contempt veiled his conversation. A half-hour passed ... an hour ...
two. Still the rain swept from the sullen sky. Twice Stillman made a
futile attempt to remedy the trouble with his engine, and twice he
retired defeated to the shelter of the car. Claire was relieved that
she was in the company of a man who did not emphasize the monotonous
hours by indiscriminate raillery against the tricks of chance. At first
he dismissed the situation with the most casual of shrugs; later he
acknowledged his annoyance by an expression of regret at his companion's
discomfort, but he stopped there.

As the hours went on, with no abatement of the storm's devastating
energy, Claire grew less and less pleased at the prospect. She began to
wonder whether the shelter of Flint's roof had not been, after all, the
discreet thing. Was not her headlong flight in company with Stillman
more open to criticism than the frank acceptance of her employer's
hospitality? But these vagrant questions were the spawn of a colorless
spirit of social expediency which fastens itself on weak natures, and in
Claire's case they died still-born. She had been too well schooled in
loneliness to lean heavily on the crooked stick of public opinion.
Accustomed to standing alone, she had something of the spiritual
arrogance that goes with independence. People could think what they
liked. And it was more a realization of her mother's anxiety than any
thought of self which made he