At half past five, when the place was jammed, I happened to look up. Carter Brooks was in the hall, and behind him was H. He had seen me before I saw him, and he had a sort of sickly grin, meant to denote joy. I was talking to our bishop at the time, and he was asking me what sort of services we had in the school chapel. I meant to say "non-sectarian," but in my surprise and horror I regret to say that I said, "vegetarian." Carter Brooks came over to me like a cat to a saucer of milk, and pulled me off into a corner. "It's all right," he said. "I phoned mama, and she said to bring him. He's known as Grosvenor here, of course. They'll never suspect a thing. Now, do I get a small 'thank you'?" "I won't see him." "Now look here, Bab," he protested, "you two have got to make this thing up You are a pair of idiots, quarreling over nothing. Poor old Hal is all broken up. He's sensitive. You've got to remember how sensitive he is." "Go, away" I cried, in broken tones. "Go away, and take him with you." "Not until he had spoken to your Father," he observed, setting his jaw. "He's here for that, and you know it. You can't play fast and loose with a man, you know." "Don't you dare to let him speak to father!" He shrugged his shoulders. "That's between you two, of course," he said. "It's not up to me. Tell him yourself, if you've changed your mind. I don't intend," he went on, impressively, "to have any share in ruining his life." "Oh piffle," I said. I am aware that this is slang, and does not belong in a theme. But I was driven to saying it. I got through the crowd by using my elbows. I am afraid I gave the bishop quite a prod, and I caught Mr. Andrews on his rotating waistcoat. But I was desperate. Alas, I was too late. The caterer's man, who had taken Patrick's place in a hurry, was at the punch bowl, and father was gone. I was just in time to see him take H. into his library and close the door. Here words fail me. I knew perfectly well that beyond that door H, whom I had invented and who therefore simply did not exist, was asking for my hand. I made up my mind at once to run away and go on the stage, and I had even got part way up the stairs, when I remembered that, with a dollar for the picture and five dollars for the violets and three dollars for the hat pin I had given Sis, and two dollars and a quarter for mother's handkerchief case, I had exactly a dollar and seventy-five cents in the world. I WAS TRAPPED. I went up to my room, and sat and waited. Would father be violent, and throw H. out and then come upstairs, pale with fury and disinherit me? Or would the whole family conspire together, when the people had gone, and send me to a convent? I made up my mind, if it was the convent, to take the veil and be a nun. I would go to nurse lepers, or something, and then, when it was too late, they would be sorry. The stage or the convent, nun or actress? Which?