as on the point of
starting reluctantly for home, and found Rodney on the wire. He told her
that he had got hold of the thing he was looking for, but that there
were still hours of work ahead of him while he was fortifying himself
with necessary authorities. He wouldn't come home to-night at all, he
said. When his work was finished, he'd go to the club and have a Turkish
bath and all the sleep he had time for. When he got through in court
to-morrow afternoon, he'd come home.

It was all perfectly reasonable--it was to her finely tuned ear just a
shade too reasonable. It had been thought out as an excuse. Because it
wasn't for the Turkish bath nor the extra hour's sleep that he was
staying away from home. It was herself he was staying away from. He
wanted his mind to stay cold and taut, and he was afraid to face the
temptation of her eyes and her soft white arms. And in the mood of that
hour, it pleased her that this should be so--that the ascetic in him
should pay her the tribute of fear.

Afterward, of course, she felt like lashing herself for having felt like
that and for having replied, in a spirit of pure coquetry, in a voice of
studied, cool, indifferent good humor:

"That's a good idea, Roddy. I'm glad you're not coming back. Good
night."

CHAPTER V

RODNEY SMILED

It was with a reminiscent smile that Rose sat down before her telephone
the next morning and called a number from memory. Less than a year ago,
it had been such a thrilling adventure to call the number of that
fraternity house down at the university and ask, in what she conceived
to be a businesslike way, for Mr. Haines. And then, presently, to hear
the voice of the greatest half-back the varsity had boasted of in years,
saying in answer to her "Hello, Harry," "Hello, Rose."

It was really less than a year, and yet it was so immensely long ago,
judged by anything but the calendar, that the natural way to think of
him was as a married man with a family somewhere and faint memories of
the days when he was a student and used to flirt with a girl called Rose
something--Rose Stanton, that was it!

It was during one of the interminable waking hours of last night that
she had thought of the half-back as a person who might be able, and
willing, to do her the service she wanted, and she had spent a long
while wondering how she could get track of him. Then the logic of the
calendar had forced the conviction on her, that he was, in all
probabili