... But don't worry about Hugo, mamma. He'll do just what I
say after this."

Mamma laughed delightedly. She was of course in the woman's league for
the general putting down of the enemy, Man. The two women stood staring
at each other in the stately hall.

"_Next month!_" said mamma. "We can't do it, Cally! November would be
better--much better--just before Thanksgiving, don't you think?"

Cally laughed merrily, and extricated herself.

"We'll have plenty of time to decide about _that_.... Now, I must fly
and dress. I shan't have time for dinner, mamma. Will you send me up
something--just some soup and coffee?"

"Certainly, darling," said mamma.

Already there had crept a certain absentness into the campaigner's
voice. Her strong, constructive mind was slipping away from this
present, measuring over the triumphs that lay ahead. After her darling
vanished upstairs, she remained standing motionless by the newel-post,
in her fixed eyes the gleam of a brigadier-general who has pulled out
brilliant victory over overwhelming obstacles. The god in the machine
had, indeed, forever put the name of Heth beyond the reach of hateful
malice....

Suddenly mamma said aloud, rather indignantly: "I wish I had that ten
thousand back!"

In her own room, Cally bathed, dressed at some speed, and dined lightly
between whiles. She was in a state of inner exaltation, contrasting
oddly with her depression two hours earlier. Obliterated now was her
conviction of her own human uselessness in a world of sexes, though it
couldn't be said that anything had happened to disprove that conviction,
exactly. In this moment she was continuously elated by all that was
signified in the fact that Hugo Canning was to spend the evening
downstairs talking decorously with mamma and papa while she, Cally,
loved of him, was to go off to the theatre with J. Forsythe Avery....

If Canning had failed her in her greatest need, time, indeed, had
exquisitely avenged her. The Lord of the righteous had delivered the
prince of lovers into her hand. With his very first words in the dim
drawing-room, Hugo had admitted, for the second time in their somewhat
stormy courtship, his unconditional surrender. He made no mistake this
time about the nature of a woman's heart; he was not logical or
controversial or just; but advancing straight upon her over her
decidedly forbidding greeting, he had spoken out with evident emotion:

"Don't look at me that way--I can't bear i