in, her contribution to it for whole minutes drying up entirely. It was
after a rather blank silence that he said he supposed Paula was lying
down, resting for to-night's performance. His inflection struck Mary as a
little too casual and reminded her that it was his first mention of her
stepmother's name. This roused her attention.

"Oh, Paula's off playing with Rush," she said. "I believe they went to
a matinee."

He exclaimed at that, over Paula's stores of energy and her reckless ways
of spending them. He said she gave him the impression of being absolutely
tireless, superimposing a high speed society existence which John
Wollaston and he, in relays, could hardly keep up with, upon the heavy
routine of work in her studio. He illustrated this with a schedule of her
activities during the last three days. "Oh, yes," he threw in, in
parenthesis, "I'm as much in the family as ever. When your father can't
do escort duty, they call on me." He added in conclusion that he was glad
she had already made a start toward getting acquainted with Rush.

Was this relief, Mary wondered--at learning that she was not at this
moment engaged less domestically somewhere with Anthony March? But she
doubted whether this was a good guess. If he did feel any such relief, it
was not, at all events, from a personal jealousy; for the illuminating
conviction had come over her that Wallace could not possibly be one of
Paula's conquests. A man still capable of cherishing as the most
beautiful event of his life, that sentimental platonic friendship he had
enjoyed with her mother, would be immune against Paula's spells.

She wondered if he wasn't a little afraid of Paula. If he did not, in
his heart, actually dislike her. But if this were true, why did he
willingly devote so many of his hours to squiring her about, substituting
for her husband? (She told herself, as one discovering a great truth,
that a substitute was exactly what Heaven had ordained Wallace Hood to
be.) She kept him going about Paula easily enough, as a sort of obbligato
to these meditations and her name was on Wallace's lips when John
Wollaston came into the room.

"Where is she?" he asked Mary. "I hoped I'd find her resting for
to-night." Evidently he had been up to her room to see. The relief was
plainly legible in his face when he got Mary's answer.

"She and Rush, eh," he said. "I'm glad they've made a start together, but
they ought to be back by now. They drove, didn't the