y head almost as
if he expected to see a large red fez suddenly drop down upon it from
the ceiling.

"No, Rose," and again Mr. Piper's voice was stately. "This is
my--difficulty. No matter how hard it may be."

"Of course I did not understand--how could I?--that Rose--was such a
very good friend of your sister's and all your family's. Rose had
told me something about it, I believe--but I was so--foolishly
disturbed--when I came in--that really, I--well I must admit that even
if I had seen you when I first came in that would hardly have been the
thought uppermost in my mind at the time." He spoke in the same tone
of kindly reproof toward himself that he would have used if business
worries had made him commit a small but definite act of inhospitality
toward one of his guests.

"And naturally--you will think me very ignorant indeed of my son's
affairs--and those of his friends--but while I had heard from Peter--of
the breaking of your engagement--you will pardon me, I hope, if I touch
upon a subject that must be so painful to you--I had no idea of the fact
that you were--intending to leave the country--and knowing Rose thought
that with her present position on 'Mode'--" he paused.

"It was very kind indeed of Mrs. Severance to offer to do what she could
for me," said Oliver non-committally. He thought he got the drift of
the story now--a sheer one enough but with Mr. Piper's present reaction
toward abasement and his obvious wish to believe whatever he could, it
had evidently sufficed.

"I know it was silly of me having Oliver to dinner here alone--" said
Mrs. Severance with the air of one ready to apologize for a very minor
impropriety. "Silly and wrong--but Louise was coming too until she
telephoned about Jane Ellen's little upset--and I thought we could have
such fun getting supper together with Elizabeth away. I get a little
tired of _always_ entertaining my friends in restaurants, Sargent,
especially when I want to talk to them without having to shout. And
_really_ I never _imagined_--"

She looked steadily at Mr. Piper and he seemed to shrink a little under
her gaze.

"As for Elizabeth," he said with hurried vindictiveness, "Elizabeth
shall leave tomorrow morning. She--"

"Oh, we might as well keep her, Sargent," said Mrs. Severance placidly.
"You will have to pay her blackmail, of course--but after all that's
really your fault a little, isn't it?--and it seems as if that was more
or less what you had to do