d, summoned the waiter, paid
for the water, paid for the service and took from the man his stick.

Cassy went with him to the car. She had made no reply. If she were to
take the plunge, there was no use shivering on the brink. But what would
her father say? He would be furious of course, though how his fury would
change into benedictions when he found himself transported from the
walk-up, lifted from Harlem and cold veal! Presently there would be a
flower in his button-hole and everything that went with the flower.
Moreover, if the poor dear wanted to be absurd, she would let him parade
his marquisate; while, as for herself, she would have to say good-bye to
so much that had been so little. Good-bye! Addio per sempre! The phrase
from La Tosca came to her. It told of kisses and caresses that she had
never had. Yet, beneath her breath, she repeated it. Addio per sempre!

Then suddenly, without transition, she felt extraordinarily at peace
with herself, with everybody, with everything. After all, she did not
know, stranger things had happened, she might even learn to care for him
and to care greatly. But whether she did or she did not, she would be
true as steel--truer! He had been so nice about it! Yes, she might,
particularly since she had made a clean breast of it and he knew she was
marrying him for what it pleased him to describe as his pittance.

The car now was flying up the Riverside. An omnibus passed. From the
roof, a country couple spotted the handsome girl and the handsome young
man who were lolling back so sumptuously, and the lady stranger,
pointing, said to her gentleman: "Vanderbilt folk, I guess, ain't they
dandy!" Behind the lady sat a novelist who was less enthusiastic.
Another girl gone gay, was his mental comment. Well, why not? he
reflected, for Jones' prejudices were few and far between. Besides, he
added: Les Portugais sont toujours gais. But he had other things to
think about and he dismissed the incident, which, in less than a week,
he had occasion to recall.

Cassy, meanwhile, after serenading a fat woman's door and looking from a
palatial window at the moving-pictures of her thoughts, at last heard
Paliser, who, already, had twice addressed her.

"It won't take over an hour or so."

But now the Tamburini, ceremoniously attired in a wrapper, strode in and
Paliser, who had been straddling the music-bench, stood up.

The fact that they had come together and were together, had already
darkly