* * * *

The bell rang. In walked Darrie.

"Well, Darrie!" and Hildreth embraced her friend. And I was glad to see
her, too. I knew that, in spite of the high pressure we had lived under
during the past summer, Darrie was trying hard to be just, to be friend
to all of us....

She laughed at the disorder of the place ... dishes unwashed ... food
scattered about on the table....

"What a pair of love-birds you two are."

"And has Penton accepted the situation?"

"I came up to tell you that he has ... it has made him quite sick,
though!"

"Poor Mubby!" Hildreth ejaculated.

"--but he has sent me to tell you that you can go away together wherever
you please, that he won't molest you in the least."

"It's too incredible!" cried Hildreth, almost disappointed, "you don't
know him ... he's changed his mind, I am sure, since you left."

"He said he would follow me by Saturday (it was Wednesday) leaving your
mother in care of Daniel."

"Does mother suspect?--"

"No ... not at all."

"If the entire world fell about mother's ears, she wouldn't know."

"What do you two lovers purpose doing?"

I unfolded my scheme of living with Hildreth in a Jersey bungalow ...
Derek's income to me would go on a while yet ... I could sell stories
and poems to the New York magazines ... Hildreth could write a book as
well as I ... we would become to the modern world an example of the
radical love-life ... the Godwin and Wollstonecraft of the age.

* * * * *

We ate supper together, the three of us, in the flat. It was so cosy.
Darrie and Hildreth joined in cleaning the house that afternoon.

But a bomb was to be hurled among us.

At twelve o'clock of the next day the 'phone rang.

Darrie answered it. After a few words she came for me, her face as white
as a sheet....

"My God, Penton is in town!"

"--this is only Thursday ... he was not coming till Saturday!" I
exclaimed, full of forboding.

"I knew, I knew he wouldn't keep his original mind!" exclaimed Hildreth.

"He's holding the wire ... wants to say something to you, Johnnie."

* * * * *

"Yes, Penton, what is it?"

"Only this," his voice replied, as if rehearsing a set speech,
"yesterday afternoon I sent a telegram to my lawyer to institute
proceedings for a divorce, and I mentioned you as co-respondent...."

"Damn you to hell ... I thought we were going to settle this in the
ra