but hugged him,
said to her, "You home to stay, too, Miss Mary?" her father's hand which
clasped her arm revealed the thrilling interest with which he awaited her
answer to that question. The importunity of the red-cap with the luggage
relieved her of the necessity for answering but the answer in her heart
just then was "Yes."

It was with a wry self-scornful smile that she recalled, later that day,
the emotions of the ride home. If at any time before they got to the
house, her father had repeated the old servant's question, "Are you home
to stay, Mary?" she would, she knew, have kissed the hand that she held
clasped in hers, wept blissfully over it and told him she wanted never to
go away again. She hadn't minded his not asking because she thought she
knew quite surely why he had not. He was afraid to risk his momentary
happiness upon her answer. And why had she not volunteered the assurance
he wanted so eagerly and dared not ask for? The beastly answer to that
question was that she had enjoyed the thrill of his uncertainty--a
miserable sort of feline coquetry.

Well, it had been short-lived, that little triumph of hers. It had
stopped against a blank wall just when the car stopped under the _ports
cochere_ of the Dearborn Avenue house. John's arm which had been around
her was withdrawn and he looked with just a touch of ostentation at his
watch. She knew before he spoke that when he did, his tone would ring
flat. The old spell was broken. He was once more under the dominion of
the newer, stronger one.

"I'm terribly late," he said. "I must drive straight along to the
hospital. I'll see you to-night. We're having a few old friends in to
dinner. Run along now. Your Aunt Lucile will be waiting for you."

His omission to mention Paula had been fairly palpable. Her reply, "All
right, dad, till to-night, then. _Au 'voir_" had been, she knew, as
brittle and sharp-edged as a bit of broken glass. It had cut him;--she
had meant it to.

Well it served her right. Paula deserved to own the stronger spell.
Paula's emotional channels were open and deep. No choking snags and
sandbars, no perverse eddies in them. Look at her with Rush to-day! There
was a situation that fairly bristled with opportunities for blundering.
She might, with this grown-up son of her husband's whom she had hardly
seen, have shown herself shy, embarrassed, at a loss how to take him. She
might have tried to be archly maternal with him or elder-sisterly. Bu