“Just shopping. I was late for dinner. Awfully nice of you to pick me up, Dick.” So she didn’t mean to be communicative. Dick dropped her at her door and went on, pondering. Well, it might have been some obscure relative, some crazy notion to see a fortune-teller who told her she was going to die young. It wasn’t any love affair, anyhow. Not from the look of those eyes. She looked as if she’d been beaten. Dick decided to dismiss it from his mind. It wasn’t his business, after all. CHAPTER XXVI It was two days after the New Year had come in. Only nine o’clock, but Cecily had almost decided to go to bed. The timidity which she had felt often at first in being in a house alone at night had almost gone now, and she was locking the doors and windows and turning off lights with mechanical routine. The house was full of the fragrance of hothouse flowers. Dick’s generosity had not taken into account the fact that flowers last more than a day and his “middle of the table” bouquet had overflowed into the other rooms. Cecily looked at them, wondering how long he planned to keep this up. She knew from the accounts in the paper that he had left town, for the papers had got wind of the new plan, and, to Dick’s rage, played it up in one or two issues before they were suppressed. The flowers pleased Cecily. For once she had hardly thought of whether they were consistent with the separation between her and her husband or not. It had been sheer delight to have flowers. As she went down to put some little yellow pink rose deeper in water she heard an unfamiliar sound and straightened up suddenly. There was surely some one at the side door fumbling with the door-knob. She looked at the clock; quarter past nine only. It couldn’t be a burglar. Somebody drunk, perhaps. Pushing open the door to the pantry, she whistled softly and the big Airedale came rushing in. With him jumping beside her, she went towards the door. This time the person, whoever it was, decided to ring. Cecily turned on all the lights and opened the door, prepared to threaten or command. But at sight of her visitor she stepped back in amazement, a restraining hand on the leaping dog. “Why, Della! where did you drop from?” Della, swathed in white fur, slipped inside the storm door and closed the inner one before she answered. “I just came over,” she said, a little breathlessly. “I wanted to see you--you know, to talk to you.” “I thought you were a burglar,” laughed Cecily. “I was going to let Bill fly at your throat. Why did you try the side door and where is Walter?”