accounted for the change in _her_ mind by saying to me: "I don't know
what you've done to that Dalziel girl, Peggy, but you seem to have made
her all over. She used to be a thorough-paced cat. Now she's quite a
darling, and if you're ever sensible enough to marry Tony, I shall love
to have such a fascinating sister-in-law. I've asked her to be one of my
bridesmaids."

I suppose changing your mind often is a good, clean thing for your soul,
just as changing your clothes is for your body.

We had a few hours to flash round Chicago in a motor car, seeing pretty,
young-looking parks, and a great lake like the sea with wonderful
buildings along its shore, and a sky like a painting by Turner. I was
bitterly disappointed not to get the telegram Tony had promised to send,
addressed to the Blackstone Hotel, where it had been arranged beforehand
that we should lunch and dine. The court-martial was to have been held
on the eighth day after Eagle March's arrest, the day before our arrival
in Chicago, and meanwhile I had lived only for the telegram. My
impatience to know the worst--or best--had been like a flame in my blood
and brain. When it was time to take the fast train to New York in the
evening, and no telegram had come, it seemed as if that flame gave a
devouring leap, and then went out, leaving my body a burnt-up shell.

The next morning we were in New York, where Mr. Dalziel met his wife and
Milly. I hoped that he might have read some news of El Paso in the
morning papers, and that he would spring it upon us in the railway
station where we paused, being charming and affectionate to each other,
and making plans to meet again before our party sailed. I couldn't have
questioned him to save my life, any more than I could have cried out in
fearful nightmares which I remembered, when the earth was about to
swallow me up, or a mountain fall on to my head. Surely, I thought, if
there were news about the court-martial it would be interesting enough
to the Dalziel family for the man to mention it, if only because Tony
was to be a witness in the case! But the affair might have been more
remote from us all than a destructive tidal wave in China, judging by
Mr. Dalziel's oblivion of it. He and Father talked about our luck in
grabbing cabins at short notice on the _Mauretania_; his wife and Mrs.
Main discussed getting seats for that night at D'Annunzio's great
moving-picture play, which had come on at a theatre in New York; his
daughte