it would have been
awkward and that is always so distressing. Another day."

Quietly, easily she had got herself in front of Margaret who, without
shoving, could not reach the bell.

With candid eyes she looked at her mother. "You seem to be
suggesting----"

"Perish the thought!" Mrs. Austen sweetly and quickly cut in. "I would
not even suggest that one and two make three, for perhaps they don't.
No, my dear, I suggest nothing. I merely insist. To-day we must postpone
our little visit and to-night, when he comes, you can have it out with
him. A lover's quarrel! What more could you wish? But here now is the
lift-boy. We must dissemble. It's quite like a play.

"No," she interrupted herself to remark at the approaching, greedy and
enquiring youth, "I want nothing whatever except not to be engaged in
conversation."

"Whachyer mean?" asked the boy, who, however, promptly blighted by her
level stare, omitted to pursue it.

She turned again to Margaret. "We will find a taxi at the corner. These
first spring days are so enervating."

Margaret faced her. "I am going in."

The sight of Cassy issuing from Lennox' rooms had surprised her, as the
unexpected will surprise. But in saying that she was going in, it was
not at all for explanations. Explanations are for strangers. Love
understands--or should understand, and Margaret divined that Cassy had
come on some errand from her father, of whose waylaying and rescue
Lennox had long since told her.

"Will you please move a little?" she added.

Mrs. Austen, after routing the boy, had lowered her glasses. She raised
them again. "Look there!"

At the entrance were two women with a child between them. On the stair
was a man. The door marked "Dr. Winship" had opened. The wide hall was
suddenly full of people.

Mrs. Austen lowered her lorgnette. "Don't make a scene, my dear. At
least, don't make one over my dead body."

Resistance was easy, but to what end? Margaret felt that she could
persist, insist, ring and go in, but now only to be accompanied by her
mother's mocking and stilted sneers. The consciousness of that
subtracted the brightness from the day, the pleasure from the visit.
Then, too, that evening he would come. Then they would be alone.

She turned. A moment more and both were in the street, where Mrs. Austen
forgot about the taxi. Other matters occupied the good woman and
occupied her very agreeably. She had been playing a game, and a rare
game it is, with d