tango crowd to pieces. He points out that the tango is the cause of the
present-day wickedness, the ruin of the home!"

Serina was dismal and terrified, but from force of habit she took the
opposite side.

"Oh, they were complaining of divorces long before the tango was ever
heard of. That same preacher used to blame them on the bicycle, then on
the automobile and the movies. And now it's the tango. It'll be
flying-machines next."

Papa was used to fighting with mamma, and he roared with fine leoninity:
"Are you defending your daughter's shamelessness? Do you approve of the
tango?"

"I've never seen it."

"Then it must be just because you always encourage your children to
flout my authority. I never could keep any discipline because you always
fought for them, encouraged them to disobey their father, to--to--to--"

She chanted her responses according to the familiar family antipathy
antiphony. They talked themselves out eventually; but Prue was not home.
Ollie gradually typewrote herself to sleep and Prue was not home. Horace
came in from the Y. M. C. A. bowling-alley and went to bed, and Prue was
not home.

The old heads nodded. The sentinels slept. At some dimly distant time
papa woke with a start and inquired, "Huh?"

Mamma jumped and gasped, "Who?"

They were shivering with the after-midnight chill of the cold room, and
Prue was not home. Papa snapped his watch open and snapped it shut; and
the same to his jaw:

"Two o'clock! And Prue not home. I'm going after her!"

He thrust into his overcoat, slapped his hat on his aching head, flung
open the door. And Prue came home.

She was alone! And in tears!

V

As papa's overcoat slid off his arms and his hat off his head she tore
down her gloves, tossed her cloak in the direction of the hat-tree and
stumbled up the stairs, sobbing. Her mother caught her hand.

"What's the matter, honey?"

Prue wrenched loose and went on up.

Father and mother stared at her, then at each other, then at the floor.
Each read the same unspeakable fear in the other's soul. Serina ran up
the stairs as fast as she could. William automatically locked the doors
and windows, turned out the lights, and followed.

He paused in the upper hall to listen. Prue was explaining at last.

"It's that Orton Hippisley," Prue sobbed.

"What--what has he done?" Serina pleaded, and Prue sobbed on:

"Oh, he got fresh! Some of these fellas in this town think that because
a girl likes