r, hating it because
it had got itself carried against her will, and went at once to the
telephone. And there her voice had more than its natural appeal, because
she was so baffled and angry and pitied herself so much.

"Could you come in? I'm bothered. Yes," in answer to his question, "in
trouble, I'm afraid."

Alston Choate came at once; her voice must have told him moving things,
for he was full of warm concern. Esther met him with a dash of agitation
admirably controlled. She was not the woman to alarm a man at the start.
Let him get into a run, let him forget the spectators by the way, and
even the terrifying goal where he might be crowned victor even before he
chose. Only whip up his blood until the guidance of them both was hers,
not his. So he felt at once her need of him and at the same time her
distance from him. It was a wonderfully vivifying call: nothing to fear
from her, but exhilarating feats to be undertaken for her sake.

"I'm frightened at last," she told him. That she was a brave woman the
woman she had created for her double had persuaded her. "I had to speak
to somebody."

Choate looked really splendid in the panoply of his simplicity and
restraints and courtesy. A man can be imposing in spite of a broken
nose.

"What's gone wrong?" he asked.

"Aunt Patricia is coming."

Choate had quite forgotten Aunt Patricia. She had been too far in the
depths of Poland for Esther to summon up her shade. Possibly it was a
dangerous shade to summon, lest the substance follow. But now she
sketched Aunt Patricia with hesitating candour, but so that he lost none
of her undesirability, and he listened with a painstaking courtesy.

"You say you're afraid of her?" he said, at the end. "Let her come. She
may not want to stay."

"She is so--different," faltered Esther. She looked at him with humid
eyes. It was apparent that Aunt Patricia was different in a way not to
be commended.

Now Choate thought he saw how it was.

"You mean she's been banging about Europe," he said, "living in
_pensions_, trailing round with second-rate professionals. I get that
idea, at least. Am I right?"

"She's frightfully bohemian, of course," said Esther. "Yes, that's what
I did mean."

"But she's not young, you know," said Choate, in an indulgent kindliness
Esther was quite sure he kept for her alone. "She won't be very rackety.
People don't want the same things after they're sixty."

"She smokes," said Esther, in a burst o