the town to a small confectioner's store at the other end. Charlie kept
up a lively chatter as they rolled along. Stopping before it she lifted
the boy from the automobile, and, taking his hand, hurried him into the
brightly lighted store. Seating him at a table, she ordered two plates
of chocolate ice cream and sat down opposite the boy, her black eyes
glittering as she watched him eat. From time to time she glanced at her
watch. When the child had finished his plate of cream, she pushed her
own toward him. "Eat it," she commanded.

Charlie responded nobly to the command. When she saw the last spoonful
vanish, she smiled elfishly. It was eight o'clock. The operetta began at
half past eight. Allowing herself fifteen minutes to reach the theatre
and carry out the last step in her plan, she would arrive there at
fifteen minutes past eight.

The wandering musician made strenuous objection, however, to leaving the
ice cream parlor. "I could eat more chok'lit cream," he informed her.

"You are a greedy boy," she said, her former friendliness vanishing into
angry impatience. "Come with me this minute."

"You're a cross old elefunt," was Charlie's crushing but inappropriate
retort.

Mignon was in no mood for an exchange of pleasantries. Seizing Charlie
by the arm she hustled him out of the shop into her runabout, and was
off like the wind. When half way between the shop and the theatre, she
halted her car. Lifting the boy out she set him on the sidewalk before
he had time to protest. "Now go where you please. I'll tell Connie to
come and find you," was her malicious farewell. Stepping into the
runabout she drove away, leaving Charlie Stevens to take care of himself
as best he might.

Although Mignon was unaware of the fact, there had been an amazed
witness to the final scene in her little drama. A fair-haired girl had
come up just in time to hear her heartless speech and see her drive
away, leaving a small, perplexed youngster on the sidewalk. That girl
was Mary Raymond. She had steadily refused Marjorie's earnest plea that
she attend the much-talked-of performance of "The Rebellious Princess,"
and directly after dinner that evening, on the plea of mailing a letter,
had slipped from the house on one of her melancholy, soul-searching
walks which she had become so fond of taking. Convinced that she was an
utter failure, imbued with a daily growing sense of her own unfitness to
be the friend of a girl like Marjorie Dean, M