Luckily no one waited for an answer. They demanded how he had got in, and when he said he had a key they laughed again. Some one told Maisie she might as well confess. If Roger had a key to the house it required explanation. If ever I heard cold suspicion in a girl's voice, it was in Maisie's when she answered: "Oh, we're engaged all right, if that's what you mean," she said. "But I think Roger and I----" They didn't give her a chance to finish, the idiots! They gave three cheers, and then, as nearly as I could make out, they formed a ring and danced round them. They'd been to a picnic somewhere, and as the bridges were down they were there for the night. Do you think they went to bed? Not a bit of it. They found some canned things in a pantry, and fixed some hot drinks and drank to Maisie and Roger. And I sat in the telephone closet and tried not to sneeze. I sat there for two hours. About two o'clock I heard Maisie say she would have to telephone home, and if a totally innocent person can suffer the way I did I don't know how a guilty one could live. But Roger leaped in front of her. "I'll do it, honey," he said. "I--I was just thinking of telephoning." They were close to the door. "Don't call me honey," Maisie said in a tense voice. "I know about Carrie Smith's party and who was there. After the way Clara has schemed all these years to get you back, to have you fall into a trap like that! It's sickening!" She put her hand on the knob of the door. "Listen, darling," Roger implored. "I--I don't care a hang for anyone but you. I'm perfectly wretched. I----" He pulled her hand off the knob of the door and I heard him kiss it. "Let me call your mother," he said. "She'll know you are all right when I'm here." Well, I had to listen. The idea of her saying I'd tried to get him back, when everybody knows how he carried on when I turned him down! I hadn't given him a thought for years. "Did you make love to Clara?" "Certainly not. Look here, Maisie, you can afford to be magnanimous. Clara's a nice woman, but she's years older than you are. You know who loves you, don't you?" Positively he was appealing. He sounded fairly sick. "Get mother on the wire," said Maisie curtly. "Then call me. I'll talk to her." Roger opened the door as soon as she had gone and squeezed in beside me. "She's coming to telephone. You'll have to go somewhere else, Clara," he said. "Where, for instance?" "I may be able to collect them in the pantry. Then you can run across and get out the door." "Into the rain?" "Well, you can't stay here, can you?" "I'll do nothing of the sort. Go and tell her the wires are down. They are. And then get that crowd of flappers upstairs. If they go the men will. I give you ten minutes. At the end of that time I'm coming out to the fire. I'm cold." "And after they go up, what?" "Then you're going into somebody's room to steal me a pair of dry shoes. Get Maisie's, she's about my size. We'll have to walk to mother's."