se!"

"Probably it didn't strike him as important in that connection," Jack
argued; and I accepted the deduction; but I was _far_ from comfortable
and my peace of mind was not restored by a conversation I snatched with
Pat when Caspian had gone. I begged her to do nothing rash, in a moment
of generous impulse; but she exclaimed, "It is others who seem to have
the generous impulses! I cannot afford to be generous. But dear Molly, I
must be just. And now everything is against Larry and me. We must go
where the tide takes us."

She didn't use as flowery language as that, but it's difficult to quote
Patty in the vernacular.

Well, we crawled home after a while, Jack and I. And nothing more
happened that day, except that Pat 'phoned me from her ruinous home
about nine o'clock in the evening, to say "Mistaire" Caspian had come
back. He had bought the Stanislaws house and paid for it, but she had
refused to accept the gift. "It must be _his_, not mine," she said. "I
understand that he would not have bought it except for my sake, so
already I owe him a big debt of gratitude. I will not owe him more. It
is now too much."

"Did he get the license?" I tremblingly ventured to inquire.

"Yes," Pat answered. But when I hurried on to the next question, "Have
you fixed a date?" silence was my answer. She had dropped the receiver,
and I was afraid I could guess why. She couldn't bear to discuss the
sword hanging over her head. Few descendants of Damocles can!

All that was yesterday. I've waited to-day to write you in the hope of
having something new to tell. But it's now ten o'clock P. M.
and there is nothing good; rather the contrary. Pat has almost if
not quite promised to marry Ed Caspian at the end of the week, Saturday,
and Mrs. Shuster has hinted at her willingness to become Mrs. Moore on
the same day. The knots are to be tied (devil permitting) very quietly,
at home, in the water-logged drawing-room at Kidd's Pines. My pleadings
to Pat of no avail. The combination of pawned rings, debts,
five-hundred-thousand-dollar houses, etc., and _Peter's absence at the
crucial moment_ is too strong for her. As for Larry, he seems to be as
hopeless as his daughter. I fancy from a chance word which Pat
_inadvertently_ let drop that, with the prospect of a millionaire
son-in-law, Larry desperately attempted to free himself, but Mrs.
Shuster "persuaded" him to stick to his bargain. How she managed I don't
know, but there are lots of ways