ot help it, she shook. A moment before she had been crying
whole-heartedly, associating herself, as a daughter may, in her father's
woe. But that was too much. With the tears still in her eyes, she
laughed. "Gracious goodness! You don't take me for a fly-by-night?"

The noble marquis, who had been standing, sat down. Before him, on the
ginger of the wall, hung the portrait of the gorgeous swashbuckler.
Behind the latter were portraits, dim, remote, visionary, of other
progenitors who probably never existed. But he was convinced that they
had, convinced that always, sword in hand, they had upheld the honour of
the Casa-Evora. No, surely, his daughter had not forfeited that. No,
certainly, he did not suspect her. But there was much that he did not
understand. The misery of the mystery of things overcame him. He wept
noisily.

Cassy, who had been seated, stood up. She had on her rowdy frock. She
also had on a hat--if you can call a tam-o'-shanter a hat. Therewith
were white gloves which she had got at the basilica and which as yet
were free from benzine. Her father had distressed her inhumanly, but she
had survived it, as youth survives anything, and she looked then, not
tear-stained in the least, but, as usual, very handsome.

Bending forward, she touched him. "There, you dear old thing, don't take
on so. I have been planning something fat for you. Everything will come
out right Just wait and see--and when you're hungry, there's some nice
cold veal in the kitchy."

But though in the kitchen there was cold veal, which it were perhaps
poetic to describe as nice, yet even the poetry of that was exceeded by
the poetry of the plan. Cassy had planned nothing lean or fat, nothing
whatever. She had spoken as a little mother may, in an effort to
console, though perhaps prompted subconsciously by the inscrutable
possibilities of life. Anything may happen. Already on the stage of
which destiny is the scene-shifter, the fates, in their eternal role of
call-boy, were summoning the actors to the drama in which the leading
role was hers and on which the curtain was about to rise.

Her father, comforted by the imaginary, looked up. She had gone. From
the sling he took his arm. The elbow was stiff, though less stiff than
it had been. Moreover the wrist moved readily and the fingers were as
flexible as before. Consoled by that, comforted already, he shuffled
into the kitchen and consumed the cold veal.

Now, in the crashing car, Cass