her talk with Senator Hanway to know that, should he assume a part, it
would not be in support of her interest. These considerations came and
went in Mrs. Hanway-Harley's mind, with the result that she decided to
say nothing to Mr. Harley.

Dorothy, for argument of modesty and a girl's reserve, emulated her
mother's example of silence. For one thing, she felt herself in no
danger. As against the demands of Mrs. Hanway-Harley, Dorothy, thus far,
had held the high ground. Moreover, she was confident of final victory.
No one could compel her either to receive Storri's addresses or cease to
think of Richard. Dorothy added to this the knowledge that, should she
draw Mr. Harley into her troubles by even so much as a word of their
existence, Mrs. Hanway-Harley might be relied upon from that moment to
charge him with being the author of every disappointment she underwent.
Thus it came to pass that, as Mr. Harley complacently sat down to dinner
that particular New Year's evening, he had not been given a murmur of
those loves and hates and commands and defiances and promises and
intermediations which made busy the closing days of the recent year for
Dorothy, Richard, Bess, Storri, and Mrs. Hanway-Harley. Mr. Harley
possessed an excellent appetite that New Year's evening; it might have
been diminished of edge had his ignorance been less.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley looked for Storri to drop in, but since the promise
of his coming was known only to herself--she did not care to furnish the
news of it to Dorothy the rebellious--the failure of that nobleman to
appear bred no general dismay. The dinner went soberly forward, and Mr.
Harley especially derived great benefit therefrom.

Mr. Harley had just finished his final glass of wine, and was saying
something fictional about a gentleman at the Arlington upon whom he
ought to call, and what a bore calling upon the fictional gentleman
would be, when Storri's note came into his hands. He glanced it over,
and then seized upon it as the very thing to furnish a look of integrity
to his story of the mythical one. He gave the note a petulant slap with
the back of his fingers, and remarked:

"I declare! Here he is writing me to come at once."

Mr. Harley got into his hat and coat, and then got into the street,
observing as he did so that he feared the business in hand might keep
him far into the morning.

The guilty truth was this: Mr. Harley concealed a private purpose to
play cards with a sel