After dinner they danced at the Linx Club. About midnight Anson assured himself that his cousins would not leave before two--then he explained that Dolly was tired; he would take her home and return to the dance later. Trembling a little with excitement, they got into a borrowed car together and drove to Port Washington. As they reached the lodge he stopped and spoke to the night-watchman. "When are you making a round, Carl?" "Right away." "Then you'll be here till everybody's in?" "Yes, sir." "All right. Listen: if any automobile, no matter whose it is, turns in at this gate, I want you to phone the house immediately." He put a five-dollar bill into Carl's hand. "Is that clear?" "Yes, Mr. Anson." Being of the Old World, he neither winked nor smiled. Yet Dolly sat with her face turned slightly away. Anson had a key. Once inside he poured a drink for both of them--Dolly left hers untouched--then he ascertained definitely the location of the phone, and found that it was within easy hearing distance of their rooms, both of which were on the first floor. Five minutes later he knocked at the door of Dolly's room. "Anson?" He went in, closing the door behind him. She was in bed, leaning up anxiously with elbows on the pillow; sitting beside her he took her in his arms. "Anson, darling." He didn't answer. "Anson.... Anson! I love you.... Say you love me. Say it now--can't you say it now? Even if you don't mean it?" He did not listen. Over her head he perceived that the picture of Paula was hanging here upon this wall. He got up and went close to it. The frame gleamed faintly with thrice-reflected moonlight--within was a blurred shadow of a face that he saw he did not know. Almost sobbing, he turned around and stared with abomination at the little figure on the bed. "This is all foolishness," he said thickly. "I don't know what I was thinking about. I don't love you and you'd better wait for somebody that loves you. I don't love you a bit, can't you understand?" His voice broke, and he went hurriedly out. Back in the salon he was pouring himself a drink with uneasy fingers, when the front door opened suddenly, and his cousin came in. "Why, Anson, I hear Dolly's sick," she began solicitously. "I hear she's sick...." "It was nothing," he interrupted, raising his voice so that it would carry into Dolly's room. "She was a little tired. She went to bed." For a long time afterward Anson believed that a protective God sometimes interfered in human affairs. But Dolly Karger, lying awake and staring at the ceiling, never again believed in anything at all. VI When Dolly married during the following autumn, Anson was in London on business. Like Paula's marriage, it was sudden, but it affected him in a different way. At first he felt that it was funny, and had an inclination to laugh when he thought of it. Later it depressed him--it made him feel old.