re was a night light in the
chemist's shop at the corner, and the panel of mirror obligingly
placed for the convenience of the passing crowd, at the left of the
big window, showed her reflection quite plainly. She was suddenly
inspired to take the soft taffeta girdle from the waist of her dark
blue muslin gown, and bind it turban-wise about her head. The effect
was pleasingly modish and conventional, and she quickened her
steps--satisfied. There was a tingle in the air that set her blood
pleasantly in motion, and she established a rhythm of pace that made
her feel almost as if she were walking to music. Insensibly her mind
took up its responsibilities again as the blood, stimulated from its
temporary inactivity, began to course naturally through her veins.

"There is plenty of beer and ginger ale in the ice-box," she
thought, "and I've done this before, so they won't be unnaturally
disturbed about me. Billy wanted to take Caroline home early, and
Dick can go on up-town with Betty, without making her feel that she
ought to leave him alone with me for a last tete-a-tete. It will hurt
Dick's feelings, but he understands really. He has a most blessed
understandingness, Dick has."

She had the avenue almost entirely to herself, a silent gleaming
thoroughfare with the gracious emptiness that a much lived in street
sometimes acquires, of a Sunday at the end of an adventurous season.
It was early July, the beginning of the actual summer season in New
York. Nancy had never before been in town so late in the year, nor for
that matter had Caroline or Betty, but Betty's interest in the affairs
of the Inn was keeping her at Nancy's side, while Caroline had just
accepted a secretarial position in one of the big Industrial Leagues
recently organized by women for women, that would keep her in town all
summer. Billy and Dick, by virtue of their respective occupations,
were never away from New York for longer than the customary two weeks'
vacation.

"My soul smoothed itself out, a long cramped scroll,"--her conscience
placated on the score of her deserted guests, Nancy was quoting
Browning to herself, as she widened the distance between herself and
them. "I wonder why I have this irresistible tendency to shake the
people I love best in the world at intervals. I am such a really
well-balanced and rational individual, I don't understand it in
myself. I thought the Inn was going to take all the nonsense out of
me, but it hasn't, it appe