as doing splendidly
down in Texas....

For a third time her over-mind spied upon and detected the nether's
treason; and this time Cally, turning abruptly from the mirror, was
troubled. Having run away, could she not at least enjoy a runaway's
peace? Why backward glances now? She had escaped Dalhousie. She had
escaped Dalhousie's friend. She stood in this room the safest person in
the world. No one on earth could betray her except herself.

The watch ticked loud, steadily drawing Hugo, and mamma and Flora. Up
through the windows came the twilight and the rumble of the vast
heedless city. Carlisle snapped on the lights. And then all at once,
without warning, there closed down upon her an enormous depression, a
sense as of standing on the brink of irretrievable disaster. Or it was
as if she had run away, indeed, but had not escaped. Or as if, in
cutting herself off from the past, she had cut away something important,
which something here gave notice that it would not be peacefully
abandoned. And mixed with this there was again that sense of large
pressure upon her, so tangible that it was almost like a person in the
room with her, sharing, dominating her councils....

She was far from understanding these feelings, but she did understand
that she felt suddenly sickish and quite faint; and she thought
practically of mamma's little flask of brandy in her bag somewhere, if
only she could find it. Then speculations on this point vanished with
the recollection that she stood in the modern Arabian Nights, all the
resources of the world at her beck.

Cally stepped to the telephone and called down in a small but
authoritative voice:

"Send me up a cocktail at once, please. Room 1704."

"Yes, mum," replied the experienced voice far below. "What kind would
you wish?"

"Oh ... the best," said she, less authoritatively; and then, rang off
hurriedly, thinking how funny it was that she couldn't produce the name
of a cocktail when needed, since papa shook one up for himself nearly
every evening, and Hugo always ordered them when they dined together,
and laughed at the little faces she made....

The cocktail came, on rubber heels, and she sipped it, walking about the
room and not thinking at all about dressing. A spoonful or so of the
yellow concoction, and the sickish feeling vanished, and she felt
instead rather devilish and fast, like the blondined villainess in a
play. She was a daring woman of the new school, a Woman with a