"I can't leave, Clara. If anything happened and I was missing----" When I said nothing he knew I was in earnest. He went out and told them the telephone was out of order, and somehow or other he shooed them upstairs. I opened the door of the telephone closet for air, and I could hear them overhead, ragging Roger about the engagement and how he happened to get to Maisie's when it was so far from his road home. Every time I thought they were settled, some fool of a boy or giggling débutante would come down again and look for soap, or towels, or matches, or heaven knows what. I could have strangled the lot of them. By three o'clock it was fairly quiet, and I crept out and sat by the log fire. If I had had a shoe I would have started off then and there. I'm no coward and I was desperate. But I couldn't go in my silk stockings. And when after a while Roger slipped down the stairs he had no shoes for me. "I've tried all the girls' doors," he said wretchedly, "and they're locked. Couldn't you tie a towel round your foot, or something? I'm going to get into trouble over this thing yet. I feel it." "Go up and bring me little Teddy Robinson's shoes," I snapped. "It won't compromise you to go into his room, I daresay." "What if he's not asleep?" "Tell him you're going to clean them. Tell him anything. And, Roger, don't let Maisie pull the _ingénue_ stunt on you. I may be years older than she is, but Maisie's no child." Well, with everyone gone and Roger hunting me some boots, I felt rather better. I went to the pantry and fixed some hot milk and carried it in to drink by the fire. Roger came down with the boots, and to save time he laced them on my feet while I sat back and sipped. That, of course, in spite of what Bill pretends to think, is why Roger was on his knees before me when Peter walked in. Oh, yes, Peter Arundel walked in! It just shows the sort of luck I played in that night. He walked in and slammed the door. "Thank heaven!" he said, and stalked over to me and jerked the cup out of my hand. "You pair of idiots!" he fairly snarled. "What sort of an escapade is this anyhow?" "It--it's a joke, Peter," I quavered. He stared at me in speechless scorn. "Positively it is a joke, Peter." "I daresay," he said grimly. "Perhaps to-morrow I may see it that way. The question is, will Bill think it's a joke?" He looked round, and luckily for me he saw all the girls' wraps lying about. "If the family's here, Clara," he said in a milder voice, "I--I may be doing you an injustice." Roger had not said a word. He was standing in front of the fire, watching the stairs. "When we found the note," Peter went on in his awful booming voice, "saying you were going at last to be true to yourself, and when you and Roger had disappeared, what were we to think? Especially after the way you two had fallen into each other's arms from the moment you met." "How interesting!" said a voice from the staircase. It was Maisie!