When she retired after the second part of the program,
she again looked him over curiously as she passed, and she took marked
precaution that her dress did not touch him. Mrs. Post and his wife again
commented upon her consideration.

The final number was made up of modern French songs which Kitty sang
enchantingly, and at last her frigid public was thoroughly aroused.
While she was coming back again and again to smile and curtsy, McKann
whispered to his wife that if there were to be encores he had better make
a dash for his train.

"Not at all," put in Mrs. Post. "Kitty is going on the same train. She
sings in _Faust_ at the opera tomorrow night, so she'll take no chances."

McKann once more told himself how sorry he felt for Post. At last Miss
Ayrshire returned, escorted by her accompanist, and gave the people what
she of course knew they wanted: the most popular aria from the French
opera of which the title-role had become synonymous with her name--an
opera written for her and to her and round about her, by the veteran
French composer who adored her,--the last and not the palest flash of his
creative fire. This brought her audience all the way. They clamoured for
more of it, but she was not to be coerced. She had been unyielding
through storms to which this was a summer breeze. She came on once more,
shrugged her shoulders, blew them a kiss, and was gone. Her last smile
was for that uncomfortable part of her audience seated behind her, and
she looked with recognition at McKann and his ladies as she nodded good
night to the wooden chairs.

McKann hurried his charges into the foyer by the nearest exit and put
them into his motor. Then he went over to the Schenley to have a glass
of beer and a rarebit before train-time. He had not, he admitted to
himself, been so much bored as he pretended. The minx herself was well
enough, but it was absurd in his fellow-townsmen to look owlish and
uplifted about her. He had no rooted dislike for pretty women; he even
didn't deny that gay girls had their place in the world, but they ought
to be kept in their place. He was born a Presbyterian, just as he was
born a McKann. He sat in his pew in the First Church every Sunday, and he
never missed a presbytery meeting when he was in town. His religion was
not very spiritual, certainly, but it was substantial and concrete, made
up of good, hard convictions and opinions. It had something to do with
citizenship, with whom one ought to marr