Enid frowned and pretended to consult the copy of the long list which she had been checking when Sally interrupted. “Is David Nash’s name on the list, Linda? Never mind. I’ll look for it. And Linda, will you please run down and tell Randall that Mrs. Barrington will be here for luncheon today? He’ll have to have gluten bread for her. Thank you, dear. I don’t know what I should do without you, Linda, you priceless thing!” When the secretary had left the room, Enid turned to Sally, who was standing beside the desk, twisting her hands nervously. “Darling, I’ve counted so on your not holding me to that foolish promise I made two years ago. You _must_ realize that David—dear and sweet and good as he undoubtedly is—belongs to your past, a past which I want you to forget as completely as if it had never existed.” Sally opened her lips to speak, but the futility of the retort she was about to make overwhelmed her. How could she forget those twelve lonely, miserable years in a state orphanage? And how could her mother possibly expect her to forget David, who had been her only friend, her “perfect knight” when such dreadful trouble as Enid, in her sheltered life, could hardly imagine, had made her a hunted, terror-stricken fugitive from “justice”? David to whom she was “half married,” David whom she would always love, even if she never saw him again? But she _would_ see him! “Please don’t get that sulky, stubborn look on your face, Sally!” Enid spoke almost sharply. “I am thinking of David, too. Do you really think it would be fair to him to ask him to come to New York merely for a party, to see the girl he cannot hope to marry make her debut in a society to which he could never belong? Don’t be utterly selfish, darling! Think of me a little, too! David knows—the truth. You must know it would be painful for me to see him, after the story I told you in his presence. I want to forget, Sally, and just be happy, now that I have my daughter with me—” The lovely voice trembled with threatened tears, and the cornflower-blue eyes pleaded almost humbly with implacable sapphire ones. “I’m sorry, Mother,” Sally answered steadily. “But—you promised. I’ve done everything you asked me to do for more than two years. I kept _my_ promise not to write to David, because all the time I was counting on you to keep yours.” Enid Barr flushed and tapped angrily with her pen against the edge of the desk. “Of course, if you put it that way, I have no choice! How shall Linda address the invitation?” “Thank you, Mother,” Sally cried, stooping swiftly to lay her lips against her mother’s golden hair. “You’ve made me awfully happy.” Her voice shook a little with awed delight as she gave her mother the only address she knew—David’s grandfather’s name and the R. F. D. route on which his farm lay. “I suppose I’m having all this bother for nothing,” Enid brightened. “The boy would be an idiot to spend the money on the trip—even if he has it to spend!”