He was growing noisy and she realized that she did not want the servants to hear. After all it wasn’t her house. She saw that they had been alone for an hour. It was past two. And then to her immense relief she heard the limousine outside. “The others are here,” she said to him. “Damn the others,” he said mumblingly, and, without apology, forced himself into his overcoat. In the hall he seemed to recover himself. Perhaps his sense of social convention struggled and overcame his amorousness temporarily. He went out, past the entering girls, vaguely speaking rather at them than to them. Nothing of what happened after that seemed quite real to Freda. She was fairly worn out from her trying day and hour of struggle and embarrassment. As she stood for a minute by a long window trying to collect her thoughts, she heard the girls at the door and it flashed through her mind to ease the disgust from her own mind by telling the whole business. She knew how frankly these girls talked of such things among themselves. They came in, Barbara leading. With a quick, sharp movement Barbara turned on all the lights and as if in a spotlight the disarrayed parts of the room seemed to stand out, the rug in which Ted’s foot had caught and which he had kicked aside, the several chairs at unfamiliar angles, the divan all tossed, with pillows crushed--most of all Freda herself, hair somewhat disheveled, cheeks angrily flushed. Allie looked a little queer as she gazed around. Barbara, after one scornful glance, never took her eyes off Freda. “So you brought him here?” “Brought him? Ted? Where were the rest of you?” “You knew where we were. We said where we were going. We waited and waited at the Hebley’s. Every one was wondering where you’d gone. You and Ted Smillie--at two o’clock. But I didn’t really think you’d have the audacity to make my mother’s house the scene of your--” The awful thing, thought Freda, is that she doesn’t believe that. But she’s going to pretend she believes it and it’s just as bad as if she did. Some one had let her in for this. It looks exactly as if--she looked around and the color swept her face again. “You shameless girl!” Barbara went viciously on. “If my mother was here you wouldn’t dare have done it. To think that we have to stay in the same house--to think--come Allie--” But Freda was roused, infuriated. The scorn of her own position, a position which allowed her to be insulted by such a person, rose above all else. She flung her cloak around her. “I wouldn’t stay in your house another night,” she cried, “if I have to sleep on a park bench all night.” The front door closed after her. As she reached the sidewalk she heard the door open again, her name called cautiously, heard the latch slipped. They were leaving the door open. As if she would go back-- She went through the streets swiftly. CHAPTER VIII ADVENTURE I