ently. Yet Canning's feeling was like
that of a man who, in the dark, steps down from a piazza at a point
where steps are not. The jolt drove some of the blood from his cheek.
But his only reply was to poke his hired driver in the back with his
stick and say, distantly: "Nine hundred and three Washington."

The hired car rolled swiftly, in sun and wind, toward the House of Heth.
Cobblestones were left behind; the large wheels skimmed the fair
asphaltum. Three city blocks they went with no music of human speech....

"But I didn't mean to seem rude," said Cally, in a perfectly natural
manner, "and I _am_ really very sorry to--to change the afternoon's
plans. I don't feel quite well, and I think perhaps I ought to
rest--just till dinner-time. You remember you are dining with us
to-night."

The apology, the pacific, non-controversial tone, unbent the young man
instantly. Small business for the thinking sex to harbor a grudge
against an irrational woman's moment of pique. Moreover, whatever this
woman's foibles, Hugo Canning chanced to find himself deep in love with
her. He met her advance with only a slight trace of stiffness. By the
time they arrived at the Heth house, mamma's two young people were
chatting along almost as if nothing had happened....

However, back at home, Cally seemed unresponsive to Hugo's overture in
the direction of his lingering awhile in the drawing-room. It became
evident that the afternoon was ruined beyond repair. He paused but a
moment, to see whether any telegrams or telephone calls had been sent up
for him from the hotel.

It proved that there was nothing of the sort. The lover looked relieved.
He wished his lady a refreshing rest, apropos of the evening. Beneath
his feeling that he was an ill-used man, there had risen in Canning the
practical thought that he had let this wild sweet thing get too sure
of him....

"I shall see you then," said he, at the door, "at seven-thirty."

"Yes, indeed.... I'll be quite myself again then. Au revoir!"

She stood alone, in the dim and silent hall. The house was sweet with
Hugo's flowers. Cally, standing, picked a red rose slowly to pieces. She
could pursue her own thoughts now, and her struggle was against thinking
ill of her father. If it was the extreme of sympathy with the poor to
regard the Works as a homicidal place, then her present impulse was
plainly toward such extremity. But she dared not allow that impulse its
head, fearful of the far-re