bout her
neck and wondered when the rope would draw her back and up.

Marie Louise marched through Mrs. Prothero's hall in excellent form,
with just the right amount of dizziness to justify her escape on the
plea of sudden illness. The butler, like a benign destiny, opened the
door silently and let her out into the open as once before in London a
butler had opened a door and let her into the welcome refuge of
walls.

She gulped the cool night air thirstily, and it gave her courage.
But it gave her no wisdom. She had indeed got away from Lady
Clifton-Wyatt's direct accusation of being a spy and she had brought
with her unscathed the only man whose good opinion was important to
her. But she did not know what she wanted to do with him, except that
she did not want him to fall into Lady Clifton-Wyatt's hands--in
which she had left her reputation.

Polly Widdicombe would have gone after Marie Louise forthwith, but
Polly did not intend to leave her pet foewoman in possession of the
field--not that she loved Marie Louise more, but that she loved Lady
Clifton-Wyatt less. Polly was dazed and bewildered by Marie Louise's
defection, but she would not accept Lady Clifton-Wyatt's version of
this story or of any other.

Besides, Polly gleaned that Marie Louise wanted to be alone, and she
knew that the best gift friendship can bestow at times is solitude.
The next best gift is defense in absence. Polly announced that she
would not permit her friend to be traduced; and Lady Clifton-Wyatt,
seeing that the men had flocked in from the dining-room and knowing
that men always discount one woman's attack on another as mere
cattiness, assumed her most angelic mien and changed the subject.

* * * * *

As usual in retreats, the first problem was transportation. Marie
Louise found herself and Davidge outside Mrs. Prothero's door, with no
means of getting to Rosslyn. She had come in the Widdicombe car;
Davidge had come in a hotel cab and sent it away. Luckily at last a
taxi returning to the railroad terminal whizzed by. Davidge yelled in
vain. Then he put his two fingers to his mouth and let out a short
blast that brought the taxi-driver round. In accordance with the
traffic rules, he had to make the circuit of the big statue-crowned
circle in front of Mrs. Prothero's home, one of those numerous hubs
that give Washington the effect of what some one called "revolving
streets."

When he drew up at