ences!" Then she drove to the Santa
Regina, where Marion was to join her in her return to Shotover; and she
was already trying to make up her disturbed mind as to which might prove
the more suitable for Marion--Captain Voucher, gloomily recovering from
his defeat by Quarrier, or Billy Fleetwood, who didn't want to marry
anybody.

In the meanwhile, Siward's new duties as second vice-president of
Inter-County had given him scant leisure for open-air convalescence.
He was busy with Plank; he was also busy with the private investigation
stirred up at the Patroons' Club and the Lenox, and which was slowly but
inevitably resulting in clearing him, so that his restoration to good
standing and full membership remained now only a matter of formal
procedure.

So Siward was becoming a very busy man among men; and Plank, still
carrying on his broad shoulders burdens unbearable by any man save such
a man as he, shook his heavy head, and ordered Siward into the open. And
Siward, who had learned to obey, obeyed.

But September had nearly ended, when Leila, in Plank's private car,
attended by Siward and Sylvia and two trained nurses, arrived at the
Fells. The nurses--Plank's idea--were a surprise to Leila; and the day
after her arrival at the Fells she dismissed them, got out of bed,
and dressed and came downstairs all alone, on a pair of sound though
faltering legs.

Sylvia and Siward were in the music-room, very busily figuring out
the probable cost of a house in that section of the city east of Park
Avenue, where the newly married imprudent are forming colonies--a just
punishment for those reckless brides who marry for love, and are
obliged to drive over two car-tracks to reach their wealthy friends and
relatives of the Golden Zone.

And Leila, in her pretty invalid's gown of lace, stood silently at the
music-room door, watching them. Her thick, dark hair was braided, and
looped up under a black bow behind; and she looked like a curious and
impertinent schoolgirl peeping at them there through the crack of the
door, bending forward, her joined hands flattened between her knees.

"Oh," she said at length, in a frankly disappointed voice, "is that all
you do when your chaperone is abed?"

"Angel!" cried Sylvia, springing up, "how in the world did you ever
manage to come downstairs?"

"On the usual number of feet. If you think it's very gay up there--"
She laid her hands in Sylvia's, and looked at Siward with all the
old mock