As he emerged from the vestibule and stood for a moment on the top step he noted that the familiar conflict between the departing daylight and the long files of street-lamps up and down the avenue was being waged. In the country, no doubt, this hour would be regarded as a part of the day; but in the city it was being drawn ruthlessly into the maw of night. There was never any twilight on the avenue. Already countless thousands of people had had dinner, and were thronging the avenue in that restless march which is called the pursuit of pleasure. He slipped into the human current and disappeared just a moment too soon to observe that an automobile swerved out from its course and drew up in front of the mansion. A youthful-looking old lady with snowy hair and with small, neatly gloved hands, pushed open the door and emerged. With the manner of one who repeats a request she paused and turned. “Do come in, Colonel,” she called into the shadowy recesses of the car. A gray, imposing-appearing man with a good deal of vitality still showing in his eyes and complexion smiled back at her inscrutably. “Go on,” he said, tucking his cigar beneath the grizzled stubble on his upper lip, and bringing his hand down with a large gesture of leisurely contentment. “You’ll be all right. I don’t mind waiting.” And Mrs. Harrod proceeded alone to make her call. By the most casual chance Mrs. Baron was standing at her sitting-room window when the car stopped before the house, and when she perceived that it was Mrs. Harrod--Amelia Harrod, as she thought of her--who was crossing the sidewalk, she underwent a very remarkable transformation. So complete a transformation, indeed, that Bonnie May, who was somewhat covertly observing her, sprang softly to her feet and became all attention. Mrs. Baron’s face flushed--the child could see the heightened color in one cheek--and her whole attitude expressed an unwonted eagerness, a childish delight. The truth was that Mrs. Harrod was one of the old friends who had seemed to Mrs. Baron to be of the deserters--one whose revised visiting list did not include the Barons. And they had been girls together, and intimates throughout their married lives--until the neighborhood had moved away, so to speak, and the Barons had remained. It is true that, despite Mrs. Baron’s fancies, Mrs. Harrod had remained a fond and loyal friend, though she had reached an age when social obligations, in their more trivial forms, were not as easily met as they had been in earlier years. And it may also be true that something of constraint had arisen between the two during the past year or so, owing to Mrs. Baron’s belief that she was being studiously neglected, and to Mrs. Harrod’s fear that her old friend was growing old ungracefully and unhappily.