"I didn't turn you down," she said. "We couldn't agree on certain things: that's all." "On what, for instance?" "That love is the one great thing in life, for instance. You always said it was--especially to a girl. And I always said there were other things in a woman's life, too--that love shouldn't monopolize her any more than it does a man." "You were wrong, Mary, and you know you were wrong." "I was right, Wally, and you know I was right. Because, don't you see?--if love is the only thing in life, and love fails, a person's whole life is in ruins--and that isn't fair--" "It's true, though," he answered, more to himself than to her. Again he unconsciously assumed a listening attitude, as one who is trying to catch a sound from afar. "Wally!" said Mary. "What on earth are you listening for?" Again it pleased him to answer her with a riddle. "Italian opera," he said; and turning back to the keyboard he began-- "Woman is fickle False altogether Moves like a feather Borne on the breezes--" "Did you ever sing when you were flying?" she asked, trying to shake him out of his mood. The question proved a happy one. For nearly two hours they chatted and smiled and hummed old airs together--that is to say, Wally hummed them and Mary tried, for, as you know, she couldn't sing but could only follow the melody with a sort of a deep note far down in her throat, always pretending that she wasn't doing it and shyly laughing when Wally nodded in encouragement and tried to get her to sing up louder. "Eleven o'clock!" he exclaimed at last. "That's the first time in three months--" Whatever it was, he didn't finish it, but when he bade her good-bye he said in a low voice, "Young lady, do you know that you played the very Old Ned with my life when you turned me down?" But Mary wouldn't follow him there, either. "Good-bye, Wally," she said, and just before he went down to his car, she saw him standing on the step, his face turned toward the drive as though still listening for that distant sound--that sound which never came. The riddle was solved the next morning. Helen appeared at the office soon after nine and the moment she saw Mary she said, "Has Wally 'phoned you this morning?" "No," said Mary. Her cousin looked relieved. "I want you to fib for me," she said. "You know the way the men stick together.... Well, the women have to do it, too.... At dinner yesterday," she continued, "Wally happened to ask me where I was going that evening, and I told him I was coming over to see you. And really, dear, I meant it at the time. Instead, a little crowd of us happened to get together and we went to the club. "Well, that was all right. But it was nearly twelve when I got home, and he looked so miserable that I hated to tell him that I had been off enjoying myself, so I pretended I had been over to see you." Mary blinked at the inference, but was too breathless, too alarmed to speak.