how long it would take him to
get into his dress suit.

"Yes, of course. You'd better not speak of it--it might make her decline.
And don't let her stop to make any changes in her dress. Everybody will
understand when I tell them she's just arrived--didn't you say?--from the
other side, and we caught her on the wing. There's some one coming now.
Do, for pity's sake, hurry, Tryon, for my cook is terribly cross when I
hold up a dinner too long. Good-by. Oh, by the way, what did you say was
her name?"

"Oh--ah!" He had almost succeeded in releasing his collar, and was about
to hang up the receiver, when this new difficulty confronted him.

"Oh, yes, of course; her name--I had almost forgotten," he went on wildly,
to make time, and searched about in his mind for a name--any name--that
might help him. The telephone book lay open at the r's. He pounced upon it
and took the first name his eye caught.

"Yes--why--Remington, Miss Remington."

"Remington!" came in a delighted scream over the phone. "Not Carolyn
Remington? That would be too good luck!"

"No," he murmured distractedly; "no, not Carolyn. Why, I--ah--I
think--Mary--Mary Remington."

"Oh, I'm afraid I haven't met her, but never mind. Do hurry up, Tryon. It
is five minutes of seven. Where did you say she lives?" But the receiver
was hung up with a click, and the young man tore up the steps to his room
three at a bound. Dunham's mind was by no means at rest. He felt that he
had done a tremendously daring thing, though, when he came to think of it,
he had not suggested it himself; and he did not quite see how he could get
out of it, either, for how was he to have time to help the girl if he did
not take her with him?

Various plans floated through his head. He might bring her into the house,
and make some sort of an explanation to the servants, but what would the
explanation be? He could not tell them the truth about her, and how would
he explain the matter to his mother and sister? For they might return
before he did, and would be sure to ask innumerable questions.

And the girl--would she go with him? If not, what should he do with her?
And about her dress? Was it such as his "friend" could wear to one of Mrs.
Parker Bowman's exclusive dinners? To his memory, it seemed quiet and
refined. Perhaps that was all that was required for a woman who was
travelling. There it was again! But he had not said she was travelling,
nor that she had just returned from abroad