interesting."

The two girls parted. Hen plunged into the Clubbers to speak to Mr. V.V.
Cally went out of the great doors, deep in thought. And having passed
through these doors, the very first person she saw was Mr. V.V....

It was incredible, but it was true. How he had escaped the handshakers
was a mystery for a detective. But there the man indubitably stood at
the head of the Club steps, alone in the gathering twilight, bowing,
speaking her name....

Had he been waiting for her, then? A certain air of prepared surprise in
his greeting rather suggested the thought.

"Is your car waiting?" inquired the orator, courteously. "May I call it
for you?"

Cally's heart had jumped a little at the sight of his tall figure, but
she answered easily enough, as she moved toward the steps, that she
was walking.

"Then won't you allow me to see you home?... It's getting rather dark.
And I--the fact is, I wanted to speak to you."

And Cally said, far from what she had planned to say in thinking of this
meeting:

"If you like.... Only you must promise not to scold me about the Works."

He gave her a look full of surprise, and touched with a curious sort of
gratification; curious to her, that is, since she could not know how a
well-known Labor Commissioner had taxed this man with "easiness."

"I promise," said he.

As they took the bottom step, he added, in a controlled sort of voice:

"Please tell me frankly--is it objectionable to you to--to have me walk
with you?"

"Oh, no," said Cally.

Down forty feet of bricked walkway, through the swinging iron gates, out
upon the public sidewalk, Carlisle walked silently beside the attacker
of her father, the religious fellow whom Hugo Canning so disliked. About
them in the pale dusk tall street-lights began to twinkle. Over them
hung the impenetrable silence. It was but three blocks from the Woman's
Club to the House of Heth. They had traversed half of one of them before
Vivian gave voice:

"I merely wanted to say this."

And on that they walked ten steps without more speech.

"This," resumed Mr. V.V., and his voice was not easy. "You must have
thought it strange the other day, when I told you the--the work I had
taken up.... My articles, I mean.... I should know, if anybody does,
that you--your family--have had much trouble to bear of late.... It
seems that I should be the last person to do what will bring you more
trouble--annoyance certainly, pain perhaps.... I felt t