For a moment and an age, the eyes of the financier and those of the shopgirl met and held, each pair the other. Met also, in that age of moment’s length, the lad Amor, a creature of the spirit whose first desire is to have and to hold, with Innocentia, one not more to cherish than to fear. A low-voiced, fragmentary conversation recalled John to the more material present. “You, Mary?” “Who else? At your worst I wouldn’t dare to desert you.” “Any more than I would you. If you hadn’t poured me so much of---- Anyhow I’ve done what you said I couldn’t do--put over a sweatshop fake that----” “Hush, Vin. Come, get up.” Turning, John saw Mrs. Hutton steady Seff to his feet. An imperative voice at his own elbow advised: “Better come with me at once, John, unless you wish to get into the newspapers.” “That is just what I do wish, Catherine,” he said. “But as the protector of this latest _Inconnue_?” “Unknown?” John glanced at his wife surprisedly, then on to the wall against which the manikin had stood. Gone was the luring vision which his mother had taught him to believe was the soul of womanhood. Gone also the girl. His sense of loss must have shown in his face. “Why not play Don Quixote for some one more ambitious?” Catherine gibed. “Ask me to nominate them--as your wife I could choose the subjects with regard to the family honor and glory. I tell you there are reporters in that crowd. Once they recognize you----” “Reporters?” He took a step toward the crush. “Publicity--that’s the cure for this scourge. Where are they?” “But, John----” The wife who never could decide whether she disapproved or admired her husband the more, remembered in the emergency to be guileful. “Would you crush the victim to cure the scourge? Shouldn’t chivalry protect the good name of that girl? At least, she is young.” “And pure as a white violet. For once you are right. Excuse me a moment. I must find a telephone.” He strode away. “Mule and mad, at that--a mad mule!” The finality of Catherine’s thought-tribute returned her to her own predicament. Her shrug redraped about her shoulders the satin-smooth mantle of her social superiority. There was a chance that she might escape inclusion in whatever notoriety should ensue. Did not a woman and a mother--the occasion evoked a thought of Jackie--owe her first duty to herself? Let John take the consequences of his mania for reform, even to being advertised as loitering alone at the lingerie show! Directly upon the decision to detach herself from possibly unpleasant consequences, she skimmed the edge of the crowd and left the store. When John Cabot returned to the stage he saw that Seff already was surrounded by the reporters. Mrs. Hutton stood at his elbow, a bottle from which she evidently had poured some sort of restorative in one hand, an emptied glass in the other.