For more than a week Ulick hadn't seen Mona. He hadn't much missed her in the swelter of the new passion, but after ten days passed he began to worry. What if she were sick? Or angry? And that was an unpleasant contingency. The worst of it was that he had no way of knowing the truth. Milt was at the seminary and seldom wrote. Ulick didn't know Mona's parents, not even by sight. Should he risk a call? No, anything but calling. She would be angry with him for breaking her most rigid rule. For some unearthly reason she had made him promise not to visit her, not to seek to know her father and mother; above all, not to divulge the fact of their friendship to her brother. That would be the one unforgivable sin. Ulick had promised, though reluctantly. Why this mystery! He was not married. He was not a criminal; far from it, he was considered a very good catch, not only because of his family connections and youth, but his income was a bait for ambitious mothers with unmarried daughters. He knew all this, so he was surprised at the little shifts and tactics of Mona. She is romantic. She is oversexed--he summoned to his memory her deep-set, passionate eyes; and she likes to make herself not too easy, he decided; but what in the devil has become of her? He went to their old trysting place in the park. He went--with Dora--to the Casino and pumped M. Dorval. No, that amiable man hadn't seen either Mile. Milton or her student-brother. Suppose she came in now and found me sitting here with Dora. I shouldn't be frightened. She is too sensible not to know the nature of the animal man. But Milt might cut me and put an end to our friendship. I'll wager Mona would continue to meet me. He saw Alfred Stone one afternoon and heard from this indefatigable gossip and news-gatherer that Mrs. Milton and Mona had gone to Hot Springs for a month. He had been to see them (he calls, I can't, ruminated Ulick) and found Mrs. Milton not at all well. Nor was Mona in the best of health. She was snappy and said she needed a change. A change was good for every one, and, continued Alfred, she gave me such a disagreeable look that I beat a retreat. Say, Ulick, what are you up to with that young woman? She's not the Dora kind, you know, not even the Easter kind, and she is Milt's sister. Ulick was aghast. This busybody telling him of his moral remissness, of his intimacy with Mona. How did he find that out? And Dora. And Easter. It was too much for his irritable nerves.