ion to attend a little
discussion group that met Wednesday evenings and read literary papers at
each other, an invitation which Nancy somewhat stubbornly declined, that
she finally made up her mind. Then she sighed and went to the telephone
again.

"Mr. Oliver Crowe? He is away on a visit just at present but we expect
him back tomorrow afternoon." Margaret is pretending for her own
satisfaction over the wire that the Crowes have a maid. "Who is calling,
please?"

Rather shakily, "A f-friend."

Briskly. "I understand. Well, he will be back tomorrow. Is that all that
you wished to inquire? No message?"

"Good-by then," and again Nancy thinks that things simply will not be
dramatic no matter how hard she tries.

She decides to take a small walk however--small because she simply must
get to bed before Mrs. Winters comes back and starts talking at
her improvingly. The walk seems to take her directly to the nearest
Subway--and so to the Pennsylvania Station, where, after she has
acquired a timetable of trains to Melgrove, she seems to be a good deal
happier than she has been for some time. At least as she is going up the
cake-colored stairs to the Arcade again she cannot help taking the last
one with an irrepressible skip.

XXXVII

Oliver had quite a little time to think things over as the two-seater
purred along smooth roads toward New York. The longer he thought them
over, the less amiable some few of the things appeared. He formed and
rejected a dozen more or less incredible hypotheses as to what possible
connection there could be between Mrs. Severance and Sargent Piper--none
of them seemed to fit entirely and yet there must be something perfectly
simple, perfectly easy to explain--only what on earth could it be?

He went looking through his mind for any scraps that might possibly
piece together--of course he hadn't known Peter since College without
finding out that in spite of their extreme politeness toward each other,
Peter's mother and father really didn't get on. Club-stories came to him
that he had tried to get away from--the kind of stories that were told
about any prominent man, he supposed--a little leering paragraph in
"Town Gossip"--a dozen words dropped with the easy assuredness of tone
that meant the speakers were alluding to something that everyone knew
by people who hadn't realized that he was Peter's friend. A caustically
frank discussion of Mrs. Severance with Ted in one of Ted's bitter
m