d
"Oh!" again. Then she linked her arm in mine. "There are chairs behind
this palm," she suggested.

We sat down. "Page," she said, "I would not have believed it of you if
you had not told me yourself."

"What?" I asked, but her gaze was disconcerting; and when she smiled
wisely, I did not repeat the question.

She laid her fan across my hand. "I wonder," she remarked,
reflectively, "I wonder how and when you and Margery met. But, no,
that is unfair. Don't tell me. I am very glad you did meet--that is
all. And I was nearer to the truth than I thought when I asked you
about coincidences. This is what I was going to tell you. Margery is
the guest to-night of Edith Page--Mrs. Stoughton Page. At the last
moment Edith's baby was taken ill with the croup, and she sent word
she could not leave home. She asked me to act as chaperon. Soon
afterward Stoughton Page arrived in his car with Margery, and must
have hurried home at once when he heard the baby was sick, for I
haven't been able to find him. I have told Margery that Mrs. Page was
detained at home, but I have not told her the details, and I don't
wish you to. She would think it more serious than it is, and it would
spoil her evening."

I nodded.

"And now," she went on, "the affair is up to you and me. I am
chaperon, and you are one of the few men she appears to know. What are
you going to do about it?"

A minute before I would have replied: "Tell her the whole truth." But
now a way out of the immediate complications seemed to present
itself--a way beset with difficulties, but still a way. I made the one
reply which seemed to be safe. "Do?" I said. "Do all I can to give
Miss Gans a good time. I don't dance, you know, but----"

"But what?"

"But I'll hang around and talk to her and take her into supper--if
she'll let me--and--all that sort of thing."

"You dear!" cried Mrs. "Ted." "You dear, self-sacrificing thing!" With
this last she cocked a supercilious eye.

"But not if you're going to bait me, or make fun of me afterward," I
qualified.

"I wouldn't think of it," declared Mrs. "Ted."

"And you promise not to mention my name to her, not even to allude to
me? This sort of thing is altogether out of my line."

"You surprise me," she said, but she promised.

So it happened that, a little later, in one of those nooks which the
genius of decorators devises, and the man of discernment discovers,
Margery and I were having that talk--"all to ourselves." It de