“I’ll take them with me,” stipulated Catherine. “Have the box put in my car, please. And, Seff, I am in something of a hurry.” The crispness of her conclusion was like frost on a sunlit window pane. The merchant showed himself nipped by it. “I’ll attend to your order at once, Mrs. Cabot.” Disregarding the importunities of less prominent would-be purchasers, he hurried back to the stage. “Mary--_Mary_!” His voice was pitched several notes above its wonted mellifluence. Mrs. Hutton appeared. “Take charge out here, Mary,” he directed. “Have the ladies step up and examine the lot. Every garment has the inimitable chic attained only by the French, and the sizes vary, so that---- _You_ know, Mary. Take anything that is offered. Such patrons aren’t going to fail our lady of Lorraine.” Far too elated was he to notice the composite of his chief aide’s expression as she observed his uneven manner, his flushed face and the glitter of his eyes. In the same thought, she sneered, pitied and suspected. She turned to attend the gathering patrons. Seff had not noticed, but another had. John Cabot had followed to the stage and now stood contemplating the closed door that gave upon the suppositious bathroom. Through it the shopman had disappeared. A mental reminder that the whole circumstance was doubtless gross chicanery and, at the worst, none of his affair, seemed somehow dampened by his memory of those two small, enlightening somethings which he had seen drip from the eyes of a laughing girl. From within he could hear fragments in Seff’s thick tones. “A hit.... Five hundred for the set you adorn.... Let me help, you dream.... No time--she’s in a hurry.... I _will_.... Hush, dear heart, they’ll hear you.” Ensued a duet of his chuckles and gasped protests in a softer voice. The end unmistakably was a scuffle. John turned away, disagreeably impressed. Many of the fashionables had ascended the stage, where Mrs. Hutton was offering the Seff confections for sale. He advised himself that he must be imagining the alert turn of the forewoman’s head toward the closed door and the annoyance that falsified her smile. Then he flouted the advice. He didn’t imagine--_he saw_. The woman _was_ alert and annoyed. The conclusion was substantiated. Sounds that might have been laughter or sobs percolated through the key-hole. Rasped gutterals interrupted, plead, threatened. There followed a rushing sound and a thump against the inside of the door. John recrossed the stage. As he hesitated, he saw Mrs. Hutton drop the garment under discussion and approach him. Next moment a scream rent all uncertainty. The most cynical scarcely could have mistaken the cry for anything but one of terror, even without the words--intense, jumbled, regardless--that translated it. “No.... _No_.... I hate you.... Father, help me--_save me_!” Before Mrs. Hutton could force the resisting handle of the door, John Cabot had put his shoulder against the panel and broken the lock.