Caroline lived, for the summer while her family were away, in an elaborate Madison Avenue boarding-house. The one big room into which the entrance gave, dim and palatial in effect--at least in the light of the single gas-jet turned economically low--seemed scarcely to present a departure from its prototype, the great living hall of the private residence for which the house was originally designed. It was only on the second floor that the character of the establishment became unmistakable. Billy took Caroline's latchkey from her,--she usually opened the door for herself--and let her quietly into the dim interior. Then he stepped inside himself, and closed the door gently after him. Being a man he entirely failed to note the drift of psychological straws that indicated the sudden sharp turn of the wind, and the presage of storm in the air. He was thinking only of the illusive, desirable, maddening quality of the girl that walked beside him, filled with inexplicable forebodings for a friend, whom he knew to be invulnerable to misfortune. Certain phrases of Dick's were ringing in his ears to the exclusion of all more immediate conversational fragments. "Cave-man stuff--that's the answer to you and Caroline.... This watchful waiting's entirely the wrong idea...." Billy made a great lunge toward the figure of his fiancée, and caught her in his arms. "I've never really kissed you before," he cried, "now I shan't let you go." She struggled in his arms, but he mastered her. He covered her cool brow with kisses, her hands, the lovely curve of her neck where the smooth hair turned upward, and at last--her lips. "You're mine, my girl," he exulted, "and nothing, nothing, nothing shall ever take you away from me now." There was a click in the latch of the door through which they had just entered. Another belated boarder was making his way into the domicile which he had chosen as a substitute for the sacred privacy of home. Caroline tore herself out of Billy's arms just in time to exchange greetings with the incoming guest with some pretense of composure. He was a fat man with an umbrella which clattered against the balusters as he ascended the carved staircase. "Caught with the goods," Billy tried to say through lips stiffened in an effort at control. Caroline turned on him, her face blazing with anger, the transfiguring white rage of the woman whose spiritual fastnesses have been invaded through the approach of the flesh. "There is no way of my ever forgiving you," she said. "No way of my ever tolerating you, or anything you stand for again. You are utterly--utterly--utterly detestable in my eyes." "Is--is that so?" Billy stammered, dizzied by the suddenness of the onslaught. "I--I've got some decent hold on my pride and self-respect--even if Nancy hasn't, and I'm not going to be subjugated like a cave woman by mere brute force either."