to Number -- West Twenty-fifth Street.
That's my friend's; and say I sent them."

CHAPTER XXII

NUMBER 526

"Mother, that was Margot!"

Mrs. Wadislaw heard but did not comprehend what Adrian was saying. She
was flushed and panting from her rush after the retreating train and
her nerves were excited.

"I'll never, never--run--for any car--in this world, again!" she
gasped. "It's dangerous, and--so--so uncomfortable. My heart----"

"Poor mother! I'm sorry. I'll get you some water."

The young fellow was excited himself but on quite a different matter;
yet he knew that nothing could be done for the present and that the
disturbed lady would take no interest in anything until her own
agitation was calmed.

"No, no. Don't you leave me. Touch the button. Let the porter
attend--I--I am so shaken. I'll never, never do it again."

He obeyed her and sat down in the easy-chair beside her. She had been
compelled to run else they had been left behind, and she had been
hurried from the platform of that last car through the long train to
their own reserved seats in the drawing-room car.

"It was foolish; doubly so, because trains are so frequent. There was
no need for haste, anyway, was there?"

"Only this need: that when anybody accepts a dinner invitation one
should never keep a hostess waiting."

"But when the hostess is only your own sister, and daughter?"

"One should be most punctilious in one's own family. Oh, yes. It is no
laughing matter, my son, and since you have come home and regained
your common sense, you must regard all these seeming trifles. Half the
disagreements and discomforts of life are due to the fact that even
well-bred people treat their own households with a rudeness they
would not dare show strangers. Now that you have given up your
careless habits I shall take care to remind you of all these details,
and expect to see you a finished society man within a twelvemonth."

"No, indeed!"

"Adrian! How can you trifle so? Now when you've so lately been
restored to me?"

"Dearest mother, I am not trifling. I should be, though, if I meant to
shine nowhere else than at a fashionable dinner-table. There, don't
look worried. I'll try not to disgrace you, yet---- Well, I've learned
a higher view of life than that. But can you hear me now? That was
Margot--woodland Margot--who saved my life!"

"Nonsense. It couldn't be."

"It surely was; and I'm going to ask you to excuse me from this one
vi