nsulted Mrs. Severance in public, but under the
meaninglessness of his actual words it was wholly firm and controlled.

"I'm awfully sorry--I've got to go right away. You'll think me immensely
rude but it's something that's practically life-and-death." "Really?"
said Mrs. Severance and Oliver could have clapped his hands at her
accent. Now that the battle had ended bloodlessly, he supposed he might
be permitted to applaud, internally at least. And "I'm sorry--but this
is over," said every note in Ted's voice and "Lost have I? Well then--"
every note in hers.

It occurred to Oliver that things were badly arranged--all this--and he
was the only audience.

Life seemed sudden lavish in giving him benefit performances of other
people's love-affairs--he supposed it was all part of the old and
deathless jest.

And then, like a prickling of cold, there passed over him once more
that little sense of danger. Mrs. Severance and Ted were both standing
looking at each other and neither was saying anything--and Ted looked by
his face as if he were walking in his sleep.

"The car's down below, old boy," said Oliver helpfully, and then, a
little louder "Peter's car, you know," and whatever cobwebs had been
holding Ted for the last instant broke apart. He went over to Mrs.
Severance. "Good-by."

"Good-by," and he started making apologies again while she merely looked
and Oliver was suddenly fretting like a weary hostess whose callers have
stayed hours too long, to have him down in the car and the car pointed
again with its nose toward Southampton.

And then he heard, through Ted's last apologia, the whir of a mounting
elevator.

The elevator couldn't stop at the fourth floor--it couldn't. But it did,
and there was the noise of the gate slung back and "_What's that?_"
said Mrs. Severance sharply, her politeness broken to bits for the first
time.

They were all standing near the door, and, with a complete disbelief in
all that he was hearing and seeing, Oliver heard Mrs. Severance's voice
in his ear, "The kitchen--fire-escape--" saw her push Ted toward him
as if she were shifting a piece of cumbrous furniture, and obeyed
her orders implicitly because he was too surprised to think of doing
anything else.

He hurried himself and the still half-somnambulistic Ted through the
dining-room curtains, just in time to catch a last glimpse of Mrs.
Severance softly pressing with all her weight and strength against
her side of the door