olf this morning. And, oh! Win, it seems
just too dreadful! I banged her between the eyes with my driver. I can't
think how I ever did it. She's not fit to be seen. Awful! worse than Mr.
Mead can possibly be. She can't stay here and she can't go home to
Washington.

"So, now, if you will consent, we shall be four instead of three. Let me
take poor Kate. She can wear a thick veil and sit in behind with Mr.
Mead, in his goggles, and leave the front seats for us. They'll be
company for one another."

Winthrop questioned this final sentence. A supercilious, spoiled
beauty--a beauty now doubly spoiled and presumedly bad tempered--was
hardly an ideal companion for the misanthropic Mead.

* * * * *

The wedding took place in the morning and the beginning of the honeymoon
was prosaic enough. Winthrop and Patty sat in the front seat of the
throbbing touring car, while hysterical bridesmaids and vengeful
groomsmen showered the requisite quantities of rice, confetti and old
slippers upon them.

It was at the New York side of the ferry that a shrouded female joined
them, and it was at the Hoboken side of the river that a be-goggled
young man was added unto her. The bride rushed through the formula of
introduction: a readjustment of dress-suit cases and miniature trunks
was effected, and the disguise which the bridegroom had predicted was
complete. The most romantic onlooker would not have suspected them of
concealing a honeymoon about them.

It was nearly six o'clock when at last they reached their destination,
the little town of Rapidan, in New Jersey, and stopped before the
Empress Hotel. Hawley had visited Rapidan once before, as a member of
his college glee club, and he had recalled it instantly when Mead's
disfigurement made sequestration imperative.

The motor sobbed itself to a standstill: several children and dogs
gathered to inspect it, and then finding more interest and novelty in
Mead's mask turned their attention to him.

The Empress had evidently been dethroned for some years, and the
hospitality she afforded her guests was of an impoverished sort. Hawley,
approaching the desk to make enquiries, was met by a clerk incredibly
arrayed, and the intelligence that the whole house was theirs to choose,
except for two small rooms on the third floor occupied by two gentlemen
who "traveled" respectively in sarsaparilla and molasses.

Hawley returned to his friends and repeated this info