No one opposing him, Mr. Van Pycke carefully made his way to the door and disappeared into the hall. Miss Downing continued to stare after him for many seconds, plainly perplexed. She was not so transfixed, however, that she failed to note the grotesque misfit of his trousers; nor did his manner of locomotion escape her attention. Could this hobbling, ill-dressed person be the fastidious Van Dieman Van Pycke, of whom she had heard so much?

And he was going upstairs to—by the virtue of all the saints, what did he mean?

A blush raced into her fair cheek. She turned to young Mr. Van Pycke with parted lips, half inclined to smile, half to protest. She found him smiling, yes, more than that; he had his hand over his mouth. Plainly, he was having a struggle of an inward character.

"I—I don't understand," she murmured, the flush growing.

"And we don't understand," he responded after a moment, waving his hand in the direction of the dummies.

She smiled brightly. "You've noticed them?"

"Noticed them?" he repeated. He intended to say more, but a sudden, sickening doubt interfered. However, a quick, rather penetrating glance reassured him. Mr. Doxey had wrapped a rug about the unfortunate gentleman and was now engaged in making room for him behind the Steinway grand. The young lady's glance followed Bosworth's.

"What is he doing?" she demanded, starting forward. "Those wax figures are not to be disturbed."

Bosworth stayed her with a gesture. "You must not interfere with an officer in the discharge of his duty," he said with great gravity.

"But—"

"Please don't pay any attention to him," he pleaded, stepping in front of her. "Sit down and tell me about the dummies."

She looked at the door through which Mr. Van Pycke had passed. "Where has your father gone, Mr. Van Pycke?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

Her eyes were expressive.

"You'll have to sit down—over here," he went on. "I don't want the detective to hear me."

They sat down side by side in a Louis Seize divan. He told her of the predicament in which his father had found himself on arrival, and of the expedient footman who came to the rescue. Miss Downing stifled her laughter three times by successful applications of a handkerchief, but the fourth time she failed. If I were not writing of a young lady in a drawing-room, I'd tell the truth and say that she shrieked.

"It is droll, isn't it?" he asked, after watching her convulsed face for a moment.

"Perfectly killing!" she gasped.

He waited until she had dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief a few times and was able to meet his gaze with a certain degree of steadiness. Then he remarked: "It's strange that I've never met you before. Are you an old friend of Mrs. Scoville's?"

"There isn't any Mrs. Scoville," she said quietly. She was watching his face.

He stared. Then he started to his feet in alarm, with a bewildered look around the room.

"Can it be that I am in the wrong house?"

"There used to be a Mrs. Scoville here."

"Used to be?"

"But she's Mrs. De Foe now."

She was smiling into his eyes now, so merrily, so frankly, that somehow he overcame the immediate impulse to express his consternation by leaping a foot or two into the air. Instead of doing anything so utterly common, he merely gulped and stared the harder.

"She's—she's gone and got married to Chauncey De Foe?" he murmured, his eyes very wide.

"This very night, Mr. Van Pycke," said she, leaning back to see how he would take it. His face grew suddenly radiant.

"Oh," he exclaimed, "you don't know how happy you have made me!"

"Happy? You?" she cried, amazed.

"Yes. I—" he caught himself in time. "I'll tell you all about it, but not now. Some other day, if I may. Oh, I say, this will fetch the governor an awful cropper! Married to-night! Here? In this house? Why—why, it must have been in this very room. And those confounded dummies were—By Jove!" He stood up and surveyed the inanimate group through a seldom used monocle. An intensely thoughtful expression put many wrinkles upon his brow, but a sudden burst of understanding cleared them away in a jiffy. He beamed. "She's had real dummies at the wedding instead of the imitations that society provides. Oh, I say, that's sarcasm simplified. It's pretty rough, though, don't you think, Miss Downing?"

"It doesn't seem to distress you very deeply, Mr. Van Pycke," she said. "But you are wrong in your conclusions. The figures do not represent the blockheads of New York society. They are meant to approximate the more active of the busybodies now at large. Do you see?"

"I'm hanged if I do."

"You are a very good friend of Mrs. Sco—Mrs. De Foe's, are you not?" she demanded.

"A devoted admirer, I swear, or I wouldn't be here to-night."

"Then, I think I may explain the situation to you. Those figures represent the society queens who closed their doors against Mrs. Scoville last season. The masculine examples represent the satellites of those virtuous ladies who profess never to have been found out. Mrs. Scoville made out her list of guests last week. She resolved to return good for evil. She invited the ladies and their satellites—by mental telepathy, I might say. Then she sent the butler over into Eighth Avenue with instructions to fetch them here in a moving van. They arrived last night, under cover of darkness. They spent the night in this room. Shocking, you'd say? That—"

He interrupted, his eyes gleaming. "You mean to say that she rented these figures for no other purpose than to pose here as people who cut her because—er—because Mrs. Grundy gossiped too fluently? Suffering Mo—I should say, good gracious! What an idea!"

"That's it precisely, Mr. Van Pycke. I fancy you know the ladies and gentlemen quite well. They treated her abominably last winter. She didn't mind it very much, as you know. She's not that sort. People did talk about her, but her real friends remained true. She thought it would be splendid to have her enemies here in just this way. With the understanding, of course, that the whole story is to get into the newspapers."

He stared harder than ever. "Into the newspapers? Good heavens, you don't mean to say she's going to let the papers in on this?"

"Certainly," she said very quietly. "Why not? It will make a beautiful story. People invite monkeys to dinner and the papers are not denied the facts, are they? They have banquets for dogs and picnics for cats, don't they? Some one gave a fashionable supper the other night for the three-legged girl in the circus, and some one else followed it up with a tea for the four-legged rooster. The papers were full of details. Mrs. Scooper and many other ladies gave dinners and balls for a woman who had been the favorite of nearly all the masculine crowned heads in Europe, and the richly cultivated Mrs. Rankling once included in the list of invitations to an author's reading the names of J. Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I don't see why Mrs. De Foe's dummies are worse than the freaks I've mentioned. Heaven knows they're respectable."

"I like your enthusiasm," he said, but still a little shaken by the intelligence.

"Mrs. Sco—Mrs. De Foe is the best, the dearest friend I have in the world," said the girl, simply.

Young Mr. Van Pycke was very tactful. He appeared properly impressed. At the same time he looked at her with new interest. She seemed very young to be calling the former Mrs. Scoville her dearest friend. Somehow, her face was vaguely familiar. He wondered where he had seen a photograph of her.

"She's a terribly good sort," he agreed, and he meant it. "But, I say, this is ripping! Talk about monkey dinners and—why, there's never been anything like this! Dummy guests at one's own wedding! It's rich! It's—"

She held up her hand, gentle reproof in her eyes. "I can't say that I like it, Mr. Van Pycke. I'm only saying I approve of it because she was bound to have her own way in spite of the rest of us. But, to be perfectly honest, I think that a wedding is something beautifully sacred. It should be held sacred in every respect. It seems dreadful—But, there, I won't say any more. It's all right, I know. Besides, it was not my wedding."

"I quite agree with you. Next to a funeral, a wedding is our most sacred ceremony," he said.

"I've never heard you accused of super-sacredness," she said, with a little smile.

"But I have very fine feelings," he protested. As an afterthought he added, "Sometimes."

She turned her head to look at the portiÈres, apparently anticipating sounds from beyond. He had a fine view of her profile. Leaning back in the divan, he made the most of the opportunity. It was a very pure, gentle face, full of strength and character and sweetness. Hardly the face, thought he, of one who had trained for any length of time in the set affected by the new Mrs. De Foe. Her hair was dark and fine and came low about her temples. It was all her own, he was quite sure, and there was an abundance of it. A small ear peeped invitingly out at him—somewhat timidly, he felt, as if he were a very wicked person to be shunned. Her neck was round and slim, her shoulders white and almost velvety in their healthy youthfulness. Somewhat to his amazement, there were no bones in evidence; and yet she was slender. He laid this phenomenon to perfect health, a condition heretofore regarded as perfectly unfeminine. Her cheeks were warm and clear, her lips red and almost tremulous in their sweetness; her eyes were—well, he could not see them, but he quite certainly remembered that they were blue. The nose—a very patrician nose—recalled to his mind one that he had seen in a very famous portrait somewhere, sometime. He had a vague recollection that it was some one's "Portrait of a Lady." Just as he was visually caressing the firm, white chin and throat, she turned upon him with a warning "Sh!" He already had decided that she was twenty-one and that her white satin evening gown was quite new and very exquisite. His intense gaze, caught red-handed, so to speak, confused her. She was not used to it: that was plain. He had the grace to look at the portiÈres expectantly.

"They are coming," she said, arising at once.

"Can't you tell me more about the wedding?" he asked, standing beside her.

"Not now. Later on, perhaps. You do know her well enough to wish her happiness, don't you?" She added the last imploringly.

"That's what I came here for—to insure her happiness," he said, smiling to himself.

"You knew then?" she whispered in wonder.

"I can't say that I knew that she was going to be married so soon," he replied evasively. "As a matter of fact, I didn't have De Foe in mind at all."

Men and women, laughing, were approaching through the next room.

"Do I know them?" he asked, nervously adjusting his monocle.

She named a dozen people quickly. He nodded his head after each name. They were old friends, all of them.

"And Mr. Rexford," she concluded.

"Rexford? Who's he?"

"He's from Pittsburg," she said, looking away.

He studied the back of her head for a moment. "Oh, I see," he said, with a dry laugh.

She faced him. "You are very much mistaken," she said.

Bellows threw back the curtains and a group of very lively persons came crowding into the room.

"Hello, Buzzy!" shouted three or four of the men. They had dined beautifully. For that matter, so had the ladies. They surrounded him and assaulted him verbally. You could have heard them laugh as far down as 35th Street, if you had been there. (Of course you were not, it being such a wretched night.)

Bosworth grinned amiably under the volley of chaff they fired at him. He observed that Miss Downing effaced herself. She retired alone to the group of dummies. He was not long in wishing that he could be with her in that region of peace and rectitude.

"Where's the groom?" he managed to ask, after ten or twelve voices had expended themselves in levity—not any of which appealed to his stricken bump of humor.

"De Foe? He's changing," said one of the men. "They're leaving for Boston to-night."

"Say, Buzzy, what do you think of the waxies?" cried another. "Have you seen 'em yet?"

"Think I'm blind, Stockton? Good evening, Mrs. Runway. How do, Mrs. Clover."

"I'm surprised you weren't asked, Buzzy," said Mrs. Runway, a blondish lady with black eyes and rather darkish skin. "You were such pals."

"Where's your father, Buzzy?" shouted some one.

"He was announced half an hour ago," said another. They all roared. Bosworth flushed painfully. There was a strange, new resentment in his heart.

"He's changing," he announced coldly, and left them to wonder what he meant by the remark.

Mr. Stockton volunteered: "Changing what? His spots or his mind?"

But Bosworth had turned toward the young lady who had effaced herself. Somehow he rather rejoiced in the fact that she had forsaken this group for another and less objectionable one. Mrs. Runway intercepted him.

"They do say, Buzzy, that you were in love with her," she said. "Are you dreadfully cut up about it?"

He stared past her. "Not at all," he announced. "Far from it. Nothing would have afforded me greater pleasure than the privilege of giving the bride away."

"Dear me," she said, as he smiled and walked on. Struck by a sudden impulse he turned to her.

"Who is Miss Downing? Where have I seen her before?"

"How should I know?" said Mrs. Runway, stiffly.

"Oh," he said, turning again. A strange young man, very much the worse for champagne, had now approached the girl, his hands in his pockets, a vacuous smile on his flushed face. Bosworth changed his course and engaged young Mrs. Chanier in conversation, all the while keeping his eye on the girl down the room.

"Terrible night, isn't it, Blanche?" he observed by way of reserving her attention, which seemed inclined to wander.

"Ripping," she said. "Everything went off beautifully. Only one hitch, my dear. I say, who's the girl talking to Tommy Rexford?" She used her lorgnette.

"I was just about to ask who the chap is talking to her. She's a Miss Downing."

"Know her?"

"Oh, yes," he prevaricated nobly, catching an ugly gleam in the young matron's eye. "She's a terribly nice girl."

"I thought as much. Isn't she too nice?"

"Who's this Rexford chap?"

She stared at him. "Oh, he's all right, Mr. Buzzy Van Pycke," she said, resenting his ignorance. "Tommy Rexford is one of the dearest boys in the world. He's from Pittsburg. I met him at Palm Beach last winter. He comes to New York pretty often. I say, Buzzy, are you listening?"

"Sure," said Buzzy, whose attention had drifted to the girl in the white satin. Plainly, she was being annoyed by the attentions of the intoxicated Mr. Rexford. He appeared to be relating a story which shocked her. "He seems very keen about Miss Downing," he volunteered, a queer bitterness in his heart.

Mrs. Chanier bridled. "What? Why, he's been drinking a little too much, that's all." Her tone was nasty. Bosworth was not slow to grasp the true state of affairs.

"How's your husband?" he asked bluntly.

She smiled serenely. "Oh, he's still got his locomotor ataxia, if that's what you mean."

Miss Downing abruptly left Mr. Rexford, who, looking after her for a moment as if dazed, allowed himself a short laugh of derision. Young Mr. Van Pycke's foot itched with the desire to kick young Mr. Rexford.

"I'm sure liquor doesn't affect me in that way," he muttered, overtaken by the sudden recollection that he had imbibed quite freely, and further distressed by the fear that it had not entirely worn off. To himself he was saying: "That fellow's a warning to me. If I thought I looked or acted as he does, I'd—well, anyhow, I don't drink to excess, so I can't make comparisons or resolutions. That girl doesn't belong with this crowd. She's too good for them."

With this sage conclusion he promptly took it upon himself to put her into better company. He joined her as she was about to pass into the library.

"What was that fellow saying to you?" he demanded, quite as if he had always possessed the right to interrogate.

"Was it so plain as all that, Mr. Van Pycke?" she asked, distress in her eyes. "He's been drinking."

"That's no excuse," said he with surpassing severity. "I say, you—you don't really belong in this crowd," he went on earnestly. "Not that there's anything bad—I mean, the set's a bit faster than you're accustomed to. I can see that. I'm not throwing stones, so don't look at me so scornfully. Believe me, it's not the rottenest set in town. It's only the gayest. How do you happen to be here? Are you related to Mrs. Scoville?"

"Birds of a feather," she said, a gleam of anger in her unsmiling eyes.

"You mean that to apply to yourself or to me?" he asked, with a wry smile.

"Do you profess to be any better than the rest of them, Mr. Van Pycke? They call you 'Buzzy' and 'dear,' so they must be your intimates. Why do you set yourself above them?"

"The Lord knows I don't, Miss Downing. But I do set you above them. You'll have to admit there's something in that. I—"

She smiled faintly. "Please don't look so dismal. I didn't mean to bite your head off."

"It would be amazingly interesting, I'm sure, if you were to try it," he said, with his finest smile. She was disarmed. "Still, I don't forget how you subdued Agrippa."

"Oh, Agrippa loves me," she announced calmly. He looked into her deep eyes and realized that she was not an untrained girl from the country. She was very sure of herself.

"Lucky dog," he said.

"He has known me for ages," she explained.

"That doesn't necessarily follow," he said gallantly. "It comes unexpectedly sometimes, even to dogs."

"Do you like dogs, Mr. Van Pycke?" she asked, with disquieting serenity.

"What is all this leading up to?" he demanded suspiciously. "You're not going to invite me to a dog dinner, are you?"

"Dear me, no. How silly!"

"Well, one never knows in these days."

"These are not the dog days." He grinned amiably. "And so you are the wonderful Buzzy Van Pycke," she went on, quite frankly interested. "I've often wondered what you would be like."

"You don't mean it," he said, surprised.

Her only response was a penitent, apologetic smile; but it served better than words. He was dazzled. He afterward recalled that the whole course of his life changed in that instant. He was not quite sure that he didn't hear something snap inside. Still, it might have been his imagination.

At this moment the bride hurried into the room, her arms full of furs. There was a shout of joy from the guests. She smiled for every one, and then sent a quick, searching glance among them. Discovering Bosworth, she uttered a little cry of pleasure, tossed the furs into a chair,—which, it seems, already was occupied,—and rushed over to him, both hands extended.

"Dear old Buzzy, I'm so glad you came without an invitation! I am, truly. I would have sent you one, only I wasn't sure you would fit in under the circumstances. You see, it was a wedding. You'll understand, I'm sure."

"Perfectly," he said. Regardless of Miss Downing's presence, he added without a qualm: "I'm rather glad you've done it, Laura. It's saved me a lot of despair, I'm sure. You see, I came up to-night to propose to you."

She laughed easily, affecting no confusion. "And I might have accepted you. That's what you mean?"

"Well, you might have done worse. But you haven't," he added hastily. "Chauncey's a brick. I've approved of him from the start. Always wanted him to get you, Laura."

"It's nice of you to say that, Buzzy," she said, serious for an instant. Her fine eyes glowed. "I know you mean it, too. Others haven't been so generous." Then her manner changed. "Do you really have to marry some one, Buzzy? Are you so hard up as all that?"

"My dear," he said, "you are alarming Miss Downing."

"Nonsense! Miss Downing knows all about you and all about me. I have no secrets from her. She's not even wondering how you could have contemplated marrying me without loving me. She knows how rich I am."

"Ah," he sighed, "I wonder if she knows how poor I am."

"Every one knows that, Mr. Van Pycke," said Miss Downing. He stared. "You have a paltry twelve thousand a year. Even the street sweepers get more than that." Her sarcasm was veiled by a polite smile.

The bride laughed. He felt a sudden, inexplicable shame.

"Well, Buzzy, I can't stop here talking to you all night. We're leaving, you know, by the 11.30. Thanks, dear boy, for the thought that brought you up to-night, I appreciate the honor." She extended her hand. "Good luck, my friend. Try further up the street."

"Oh, I say, Laura," he protested. She saw the genuine hurt in his eyes. Instead of withdrawing the hand he had clasped, she suddenly gave his a warm pressure. Her mocking eyes grew sober and earnest.

"You're too much of a real man, Buzzy, for that sort of thing," she said. "Don't do it. Marry for love, my dear friend, even if it means getting along on twelve thousand a year. I don't believe, Bosworth Van Pycke, that down in your heart you can see much that is glorious in the spending of a woman's money. You're cut out for better work than that."

"I've just come to the same conclusion, Laura," he said firmly. "Good luck and God bless you. You'll be happy: De Foe doesn't need your money."

She dashed off to give orders to the butler and the maids who were waiting in the library beyond. De Foe's entrance was the signal for another outburst of joyous badinage. He was a handsome, strong-featured man of rather serious mien.

Bosworth at once shook hands with him, the others looking on curiously. "God bless you and—thank you, old chap," he said. De Foe was never to know why the young man thanked him, but the attentive Miss Downing understood and favored the speaker with a glance of profound concern.

He turned to her as De Foe was claimed by the others. An expression of deep uneasiness had come into his eyes.

"I wonder what keeps father so long," he said, so quaintly that she laughed aloud. Then both of them turned to watch the preparations for departure.

The butler tossed the jewel boxes into a stout black bag; the detective took charge of it. Bellows peered from the front windows in quest of the motor cars; everybody chattered and gabbled while they were being bundled into their outer garments by the nimble attendants. One could only think of the anterooms in the Savoy or the Ritz.

"Now get out, every one of you," cried the bride. "I insist on being the last to leave the house. It's for good luck."

Bellows said something in a low voice to Mr. De Foe. Any one but Bellows would have betrayed concern.

"No motors!" exclaimed Mr. De Foe. There was a sudden silence in the room.

"The blizzard, sir," said Bellows, briefly.

"But, hang it all, we must get to the station," cried the groom. "What the devil's the meaning of all this?"

"Don't blame Bellows, old man," said Bosworth Van Pycke. "He isn't a blizzard. And don't lose your temper, either. Remember it's your wedding night. Now, I have a big sleigh coming for me at 10.30. Taxis can't budge in this weather. You and the bride can take my sleigh—"

He did not finish. Every man in the party had begun to berate the kind of car he owned and every woman was scolding the weather. Then there was a common demand for four-horse sleighs. Bellows received half a dozen orders to telephone to the garages and to the livery stables, all in the same breath, it seemed.

"Don't worry, Chaunce. My sleigh is sure to come. The bride is safe." So spoke the confident Mr. Van Pycke. "All I ask you to do in return is to send it back here for me as soon as you're safely there."

"You're an angel, Buzzy," cried the bride from the depths of her sables.

Just as the sleigh was announced, half an hour later, a diversion was created by the entrance of Mr. Van Pycke, senior. He was dressed for the street, fur-coated and gloved. The shout which greeted him brought him up just inside the door. He glared at the crowd.

"Where are you, Bosworth?" he called out, his voice husky with emotion.

"Here, father. Are you ready to go?" His son stepped forward rather quickly.

"Do you think I'm going to stay all night?" snapped the old gentleman. "I'm—I'm damned if I do!"

Every one was rushing for the doors. The bride took time for a few words with the latest arrival.

"How late you are, Mr. Van Pycke!" she cried, grasping his hand. "I'm so sorry we must be going. Catching a train, you know. By the way, Buzzy, we're sailing for the Azores day after to-morrow. When you're in Paris, be sure to look us up. Thank God, I'm never coming back to New York. Now you know why I don't care a snap what people say or think about my wedding guests. Good-bye, my dear. Good-bye, Mr. Van Pycke. Thanks, so much, for the roses you sent up to-day. Be sure we get the right sleigh, Bellows. Come, Mary, dear, kiss me. I know you'll look me up when you come to Paris."

She enveloped the pretty Miss Downing in her arms, kissed her warmly, and then rushed off into the hall, where the crowd was being shooed out into the storm ahead of her.

Bosworth observed that Miss Downing was not attired for the street.

"You're not going?" he asked quickly.

"Not till to-morrow," she said. "I'm staying overnight."

"Bosworth," put in Mr. Van Pycke, in deadly tones, "where is your cab?"

"Stuck in the snow, dad. My sleigh will be back in half an hour. Take off your coat. Miss Downing won't mind our staying here a while longer. She—"

"Not another minute, sir!" snapped Mr. Van Pycke. "You don't know what I know. You—"

"I don't believe you know what I know, either, dad," said his son, dryly.

Bellows entered. "Your sleigh will return in half an hour, Mr.—Mr. Bosworth. Will you wait, sir?"

"No, he won't wait," said Mr. Van Pycke. "Get his coat and hat, Bellows. I'm—I'm going to take him away."

"You'll be lost in the snow, sir," said Bellows, mildly. "It's worse than the Alps, sir."

"Alps? Confound you, you've never seen the Alps!"

"No, sir," said Bellows. "But Stokes, the butler, has, sir."

"Send Stokes to me, Bellows," said Miss Downing, quietly. "I will give orders for to-night and to-morrow morning. I hope you will forgive me, Mr. Van Pycke, if I retire at once. I am very tired. It has been a busy day and—a rather wearing night."

"Please don't go just yet," he begged. "You promised to tell me about the—" He was going to say wedding, but his father interrupted.

"If you're not coming at once, Bosworth, I'll leave you here. I'll walk. I'll have pneumonia anyhow, so what's the sense of taking care of myself? I've been insulted, outraged, humiliated in this—But, I can't talk about it now, not in the presence of a lady—for I'm sure she is a lady. I can tell 'em by the sound of their voices. What, in God's name, are you doing here? That's the thing that puzzles me. 'Gad, if I did the proper thing, I'd take you away at once, storm or no storm."

"Dad, you don't understand," began Bosworth.

"Are you coming away with me?" roared his father, stamping the floor.

"Do they still hurt you?" asked his son, with a solicitous glance at the old gentleman's feet.

Mr. Van Pycke sputtered. "I have my own on, sir. But I'm crippled for life, just the same. Thank God, I got my trousers in the end." He passed his hand nervously over his brow.

"In the end?" murmured Bosworth. Miss Downing turned to the fireplace.

"I—I can't tell you about it now," said his father in a constrained manner. "'Gad, it was—it was awful! Bellows! Where the deuce is the man? Ah, here you are. Bellows, call me a cab or something at—"

"Mr. Stokes will be here directly, Miss," said Bellows. "Very good, Mr. Van Pycke. A four-wheeler?"

"Take the subway, dad," interposed Bosworth, glaring at Bellows. "Next corner below. But, think it over. You'd better wait for me."

Stokes came in, and Miss Downing, with a significant glance at Bosworth, retired to the library with the butler.

"Has everybody departed?" asked Bosworth of Bellows, who was turning off some of the lights in the lower end of the room. The young man dropped into a chair, opened his cigaret case, and then, first looking at the portiÈres obscuring the library, yawned prodigiously.

"Yes, sir," said Bellows, caught in the middle of an illy-suppressed yawn. "The detective, my mistress's maid, and Mr. De Foe's man, with the bags, sir, went away with the 'appy couple in your sleigh. It was a bit crowded, sir, for the driver."

"Bellows," hissed Mr. Van Pycke, "who instructed you to take my trousers out to press 'em?"

"They needed it, sir, badly," explained Bellows.

"And my shoes, sir,—I did not ask to have them polished, did I?"

"No, sir. As I remember it, you did not."

"It wouldn't have been so bad," almost moaned the unhappy gentleman, turning to his son, "but I didn't discover their absence until after I had, in my ungovernable rage, thrown those confounded wax figure's garments from an upstairs window. And then, by Gad, sir, I couldn't find my own trousers. What's more, I couldn't find the bell button to call for Bellows. There I was, in a strange bedroom without—Oh, I'll never forget it, Bosworth—never! What the devil are you laughing at, sir?"

Miss Downing had quietly reentered the room and was standing just inside the door, a growing smile of appreciation on her lips.

"Wha—what did you do, sir?" asked Bosworth, controlling himself heroically.

"Do? What could I do? Demmit all, trousers don't grow on chandeliers, do they? I couldn't pick off a pair, À la Santa Claus, could I? There was only one thing left to do. That was to shout for Bellows. Just as I was on the point of stealing out to the head of the stairs, I heard voices—a man's and a woman's. I dashed back into the bedroom. 'Gad, sir, what do you think? Those people were in the next room, and the door, which I hadn't noticed before, was partly ajar. At any minute they might come in and find—ahem! I didn't see you, Miss Downing."

"Please go on," she said.

"Only to convince you what kind of a house we have all gotten into," he explained, after a moment of indecision. "Well, I quickly entered a clothes closet near by. I don't want to hurt your feelings, Miss Downing, but the lady in the next bedchamber was your friend, Mrs. Scoville. The man was that confounded De Foe chap. I—I can't tell you what they were saying to each other. It was sickening, I'll say that much. No, no—I won't go into details. It seems there was a maid in there, hooking her up, but they didn't mind her. When the maid went out, I distinctly heard five or six kisses—ahem! Hang it all, Bosworth, I couldn't help eavesdropping. There were people in the hall outside. It was the most brazen thing I've ever known. Unfortunately, I had to sneeze."

He stopped to blow his nose. Bellows also blew his, but for a different reason.

"Yes, I sneezed. The exhibition ceased. I had just time to shut the closet door before De Foe came into the room, looking about. He said something about 'confounded servants,' and then went back to her. Then I heard him call her 'sweetheart' and ask her if she wouldn't tie his necktie for him, like a little darling. By Gad, sir, it was worse than I thought. I—"

Bosworth coughed violently, and Miss Downing found it necessary to fleck some dust from a bronze bit at her elbow—somewhat to the rear of it, to be perfectly accurate.

"You don't understand, father—" began Buzzy, nervously.

"Confound it sir, I'm not deaf. I'll pass over the next half hour, except to say that they billed and cooed without cessation. I give you my word, that closet was like an ice-chest. I demmed near froze to death. At last they went away. Bellows came back with my trousers and shoes. After he'd gone, I stole out and got into 'em. There's a lot more I could tell, but—what's the use? I want to get out of here. Just to think that I came up here in all this storm to ask that creature to be my wife! 'Gad, I wouldn't ask her now if she was the last woman on earth. Open the door for me, Bellows! I'm going next door to the Lackaday, for the night, Bosworth. Call up by 'phone in the morning to see if I have pneumonia."

He stormed into the hall without saying good night to Miss Downing. They heard him swear roundly as Bellows opened the door to the vestibule. Then there was a slam of the outer door. Together the young man and woman walked to the front window, and, side by side, they saw him fight his way down the steps and across the thirty feet of snowbank that lay between the house and the street entrance to the hotel bar.

Mr. Van Pycke did not know, until he saw it in the papers next day, that there had been a wedding. It may be well to add in this connection that it was a long time before New York heard the last of that wedding and its amazing guests by proxy.

"Good night," said Miss Downing, as they turned away from the window.

"Oh, please, not yet," he cried.

"I am so tired," she pleaded.

"The sleigh will be back in twenty or thirty minutes."

"I'll stay ten minutes," she agreed. "Come and sit before the fire in the library. You may have a cigar or a cigaret—but nothing to drink." He started guiltily.

At the end of ten minutes, despite the fact that he was very amusing, she rose from the deep, comfortable chair before the fender, and said good night once more. "I hear sleigh bells in front," she said.

"When are you leaving?" he asked, looking into her eyes with all of the new interest that had come into his own.

"To-morrow. I'm to have a year's vacation on full pay," she said quite clearly. His eyes flew very wide open. "Isn't it nice, Mr. Van Pycke?"

She was gone. He stood perfectly still, listening to the rustle of her gown as she sped up the stairs beyond. Something like a soft laugh came back to him from the dome of the hall. His face was a study.

"By thunder!" he murmured, prior to a long, intent contemplation of the blazing coals. At last, shrugging his shoulders in dire perplexity, he turned and slowly made his way to the front windows.

The sleigh was not in sight. He glanced at his watch. Eleven-twenty. With sudden exasperation he jammed his hands into his pockets and said something softly. Kicking a chair to the window, he sat down and glared at the snow-covered glass. Outside, the wind shrieked louder than ever.

When Bellows came in to turn out the lights at a quarter to twelve, Bosworth did not hear him, nor did Bellows observe the limp figure in the chair. Mr. Van Pycke was sound asleep, and the footman did not have far to go to reach the same state.

A sleigh came up, banked with snow, waited awhile in front of the dark house, and then departed.