at she was even then on the way
to Chicago. He had just dropped round at the station in the hope of being
able to pick her up for dinner. She had some shopping to do he understood
and he wouldn't detain her now.

"Oh, nothing that matters a bit," said Mary. "It was an excuse merely,
for running away from Hickory Hill."

There was something to be said for a man like Wallace as a confidant. He
was perfectly safe not to guess anything on his own account. He seemed
touched by her candor and hugged her arm against his side as they walked
along, a gesture of endearment such as he hadn't indulged in for half a
dozen years.

"So if you have nothing better to do," she went on, "we can begin
our evening now. Though I suppose I had better find, first, a place
to sleep."

"Frederica Whitney's in town for a day or two, just for a flying visit
to Martin. She'd be glad to take you in, I'm sure."

"Oh, I think not," said Mary. "Not if I can get anything with four walls
at the Blackstone."

She thought from his glance at her that he attached some special
significance to her unwillingness to go to the Whitney house and hastened
to assure him this was not the case.

"Frederica's a dear. Only I just happen to feel like not being anybody's
guest to-night. Oh, and I didn't mean you by that either."

"It's nice to be nobody in that sense," he said.

His next suggestion was that he get his car, start north up the shore
with her, have dinner at one of the taverns along the road and deliver
her in good season for a night's sleep in the cottage at Ravinia.

But this suggestion was declined rather more curtly.

"To-morrow is as soon as I want to go there," she said. "Pete's going
over then to get father so I shall go on duty. But meanwhile I'll let him
enjoy his holiday in peace."

He made no further demur to telephoning over to the Blackstone.

On his coming back presently with the news that he had a room for her,
she said, "Then we've nothing on our minds, have we? Except finding a
place for dinner that's quiet and--not too romantic. I _am_ glad you came
to meet me."

She was quite sincere about this. It would have been ghastly she
reflected, to have spent the evening alone in a hotel bedroom with her
own thoughts, if those she had entertained on the train coming in were a
fair sample.

He was being just as nice to her as possible. By his old-fashioned
standards, no hotel was a proper place for a young girl to spend a night
i