His quiet voice acted like a tonic, and her face was full of gratitude as she bade him goodnight, and turned to confer with Frank. Carroll stood by the reporters' tables, irresolutely, until presently Silvia beckoned her. The two women exchanged looks which were enigmatical to Frank, but evidently perfectly intelligible to them, for Carroll turned away with a sound like a strangled sob, and the pall of weariness and depression which had lifted for a moment again settled over Silvia, now that there were no longer any prying or unfriendly eyes upon them. Without another word she turned and went down to her car. Frank waited until Carroll gathered up her "copy," and then they went out into the street together. "Why didn't you go home with Miss Holland?" he asked. "She looked as if she wanted you; I supposed she was going to ask you when she called you over." "Not she," answered the girl. "She knows better than to prepare for the great day of her life by gabbling half the night. Besides, I'm too blue to be of any use to her." "Anything happened?" he asked, too absorbed in his own affairs to give other matters more than perfunctory attention. "Yes," she said, vexation in her voice. "I've fallen down on an assignment, the biggest I've had since I came to New York, and I'm all broken up over it." He turned and looked at her, conscious of a sense of disappointment all out of proportion to the occasion. It was the first time he had ever known her to fail in comprehension or sympathy; that she could even remember, let alone obtrude, a small personal grievance of her own in the face of the tragedy that surrounded them, was so utterly out of keeping with her character that he looked at her in amazement, and it took him several minutes to control his voice so as to make the proper politely concerned query as to the demands of the city editor which had proved too much for her well-known ability. "It wasn't the city editor," she said, too unhappy to notice the icy timbre of his voice. "It's a good thing to disappoint them once in a while; keeps 'em from expecting you to outdo the labors of Hercules in time to beat the morning papers. No, it was something I was to do for Silvia, and I can't make good; at least I haven't, and I'm at the end of my resources." In spite of the fact that it was still broad daylight, and a crowded thoroughfare, Frank Earl stopped and gave her hand a cordial grip that made her wince. "You're all right," he said. "You're all right. Now let's go and have dinner." "Are you not going to the Ramseys'?" she asked, evidently taking it for granted that the family would wish to be together at such a time.