t not once did he rise to glance at
the tape which streamed neglected into the basket.

It was after one o'clock when he snatched the receiver from the hook
again with a hopeless premonition of another disappointment. Then he
heard Betty's voice, scarcely more than an anxious whisper "George!"

"Yes, yes, Betty."

"My car will be somewhere between Altman's and Tiffany's at two o'clock,
as near the corner of Thirty-fifth Street as they'll let me get. Lambert
knows. It's all right."

"But, Betty----"

"Just be there," she said, and must have hung up.

He glanced at his watch. He could start now. He hurried from the
building, but there was no point in haste. He had plenty of time, too
much time; and Betty hadn't said he would see Sylvia; hadn't given him
time to ask; but she must have arranged an interview, else why should
she care to see him at all, why her manner of a conspirator?

He reached the rendezvous well ahead of time, but he recognized Betty's
car just beyond the corner, and saw her wave to him anxiously. He
stepped in and sat at her side. She laughed nervously.

"I guessed you would be a little ahead," she said as the car commenced
to crawl north.

"Am I to see Sylvia?"

Betty nodded.

"Just once. This noon, before I telephoned, she acknowledged that she
wanted to see you--to talk to you for the last time. That's the way she
put it."

Betty smiled sceptically.

"You know I don't believe anything of the sort."

"What do you think can be done?" George asked.

She didn't suggest anything, merely repeating her faith, going on while
she looked at George curiously.

"So all the time, George--and I didn't really guess, but I might have
known you would. I can remember now that day at Princeton when I asked
you about her dog, and your anxiety one night at Josiah's when you
wanted to know if she was going to be married--oh, plenty of hints now.
George! Why did you let it go so far?"

"Couldn't help myself, Betty."

She looked at him helplessly.

"And what have you done to her?"

"If you can't guess----" George said.

Betty smiled reminiscently.

"Perhaps I can guess. You would do just that, George, when there was
nothing else."

"You don't blame me?" he asked. "You don't ask, as Lambert did, why I
waited so long?"

She shook her head.

"I'm sure," she said, "when you came last night you saw a Sylvia none of
us had ever met before. Don't you think it had come upon her all at once
that s