r Joseph and Lady Webling, of their thrill at her resemblance to
their dead daughter, of their plea that she leave the stage and enter
their family, of her new life, and the outbreak of the war.

Major Widdicombe pounded on the door and said: "Are you girls going to
talk all night? I've got to get up at seven and save the country."

Polly cried to him, "Go away," and to Marie Louise, "Go on."

Marie Louise began again, but just as she reached the first suspicions
of Sir Joseph's loyalty she remembered the oath she had plighted to
Verrinder and stopped short.

"I forgot! I can't!"

Polly groaned: "Oh, my God! You're not going to stop there! I loathe
serials."

Marie Louise shook her head. "If only I could tell you; but I just
can't! That's all; I can't!"

Polly turned her eyes up in despair. "Well, I might as well go to bed,
I suppose. But I sha'n't sleep a wink. Tell me one thing, though. You
weren't really a German spy, were you?"

"No, no! Of course not! I loathe everything German."

"Well, let the rest rest, then. So long as Lady Clifton-Wyatt is a
liar I can stand the strain. If you had been a spy, I suppose I'd have
to shoot you or something; but so long as you're not, you don't budge
out of this house. Is that understood?"

Marie Louise nodded with a pathetic gratitude, and Polly stamped a
kiss on her brow like a notarial seal.

CHAPTER VIII

The next morning's paper announced that spring had officially arrived
and been recognized at the Capitol--a certain Senator had taken off
his wig. Washington accepted this as the sure sign that the weather
was warm. It would not be officially autumn till that wig fell back
into place.

There were less formal indications: for instance, the annual
flower-duel between the two terraces on Massachusetts Avenue. The
famous Embassy Terrace forsythias began it, and flaunted little
fringes of yellow glory. The slopes of the Louise Home replied by
setting their magnolia-trees on fire with flowers like lamps, flowers
that hurried out ahead of their own leaves and then broke and covered
the ground with great petals of shattered porcelain. The Embassy
Terrace put out lamps of its own closer to the ground, but more
gorgeous--irises in a row of blue, blue footlights.

The Louise Home, where gentlewomen of better days, ambassadresses of
an earlier regime, kept their state, had the last word, the word that
could not be bettered, for it uttered wistaria, wistful laven