she asked.

"Oh, my dear!" Cassandra exclaimed, as if no further words were
needed. "Of course, we disagree about every subject under the sun," she
exclaimed, "but I think he's the cleverest man I've ever met--and you're
the most beautiful woman," she added, looking at Katharine, and as
she looked her face lost its animation and became almost melancholy in
sympathy with Katharine's melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the last
refinement of her distinction.

"Ah, but it's only ten o'clock," said Katharine darkly.

"As late as that! Well--?" She did not understand.

"At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades.
But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked
at her with a puzzled expression.

"Here's Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd
things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick. "Can
you make her out?"

Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not
find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright
at once and said in a different tone:

"I really am off, though. I wish you'd explain if they say anything,
William. I shan't be late, but I've got to see some one."

"At this time of night?" Cassandra exclaimed.

"Whom have you got to see?" William demanded.

"A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She
knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their
neighborhood, in case of need.

"Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely,
sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room.

She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the
lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of being
out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary in her
high, lonely room at the end of the drive. She climbed the stone steps
quickly, remarking the queer look of her blue silk skirt and blue shoes
upon the stone, dusty with the boots of the day, under the light of an
occasional jet of flickering gas.

The door was opened in a second by Mary herself, whose face showed
not only surprise at the sight of her visitor, but some degree of
embarrassment. She greeted her cordially, and, as there was no time for
explanations, Katharine walked straight into the sitting-room, and found
herself in the presence of a young man who was lying back in a chair and
holding a sheet of paper in hi