trusted with the honor of the Coppereds.

"Heavens, no!" said Mrs. Coppered, vigorously.

"Then I hope you will not object to my escort," said the boy, flushing.

If he meant it for reproach, it missed its mark. Mrs. Coppered's
surprised look became doubtful, finally changed to relief.

"Why, that's very sweet of you, Duncan," she said graciously,
"especially as I can't tell you what I'm going for, my dear, for it may
not occur. But I think, of all people in the world, you're the one to
go with me!"

Duncan eyed her severely.

"At the same time," he said, "I can't for one moment pretend--"

"Exactly; so that it's all the nicer of you to volunteer to come
along!" she said briskly. "You'll have to hurry, Duncan. And ask Paul
to come up for my trunk, will you? We leave the house in half an hour!"

Mrs. Coppered advised her stepson to supply himself with magazines on
the train.

"For I shall have to read," she said, "and perhaps you won't be able to
sleep."

And read she did, with hardly a look or a word for him. She turned and
re-turned the pages of a little paper-covered book, moving her lips and
knitting her brows over it as she read.

Duncan, miserably apprehensive that they would meet some acquaintance
and have to give an explanation of their mad journey, satisfied himself
that there was no such immediate danger, and, assuming a forbidding
expression, sat erect in his seat. But he finally fell into an uneasy
sleep, not rousing himself until the train drew into the Forty-second
Street station late in the evening. His stepmother had made a rough
pillow of his overcoat and put it between his shoulder and the
window-frame; but he did not comment upon it as he slipped it on and
followed her through the roaring, chilly station to a taxicab.

"The Colonial Theatre, as fast as you can!" said she, as they jumped
in. She was obviously nervous, biting her lips and humming under her
breath as she watched the brilliantly lighted streets they threaded so
slowly. Almost before it stopped she was out of the cab, at the
entrance of a Broadway theatre. Duncan, alert and suspicious, read the
name "Colonial" in flaming letters, and learned from a larger sign that
Miss Eleanor Forsythe and an all-star cast were appearing therein in a
revival of Reade's "Masks and Faces."

In the foyer Mrs. Coppered asked authoritatively for the manager. It
was after ten o'clock, the curtain had risen on the last act, and a
general opinion