"Oh, Mr. Hunt!" she wailed. "Thanks to goodness you're here early. I can't do nothing with Togo. He won't eat no breakfast, and he won't let nobody touch him. He's sitting up there like a--I don't know what, with his precious tail uncurled and his head sort of hanging down--it'll break your heart to look at him! I can't bear to myself, though I'd never no use for the beast, neither liking nor disliking! He's above his station, I say. But what with all---- And I've got to get that room cleared and redone by twelve, feelings or no feelings, and Gawd knows feelings _will_ enter in! Not half Miss Susan's class either, the new party just now applied, and right beside my own room, too, though well recommended, so I can't complain!" I broke through her dusty web of words with an impatient, "What on earth are you talking about, Miss O'Neill?" "You don't know?" she gasped. "You don't----" "I most certainly do not. Where's Miss Susan?" "Oh, Mr. Hunt! If I'd-a knowed she hadn't even spoke to you! And you with her all evening--treating to dinner and all! But thank Gawd it's a reel lady she went away with! Miss Leslie, in her big limousine, that's often been here! _That_ I can swear to you with my own eyes!" Susan was gone, and gone beyond hope of an immediate return. There is no need to labor the details of her flight. A letter, left for me with Miss O'Neill, gives all the surface facts essential. "_Dear Ambo_: Try not to be angry with me; or too hurt. When I left you last night I decided to seize an opportunity which had to be seized instantly, or not at all. Mona Leslie has been planning for a long European sojourn all winter, and for the past two weeks has been trying to persuade me to go with her as a sort of overpaid companion and private secretary. She has dangled a salary before me out of all proportion to my possible value to her, but--never feeling very sympathetic toward her sudden whims and moods--that hasn't tempted me. "Now, at the eleventh hour, literally, this chance for a complete break with my whole past and probable future has tempted me, and I've flopped. You've been urging my need for rest and change; if that's what I do need this will supply it, the change at least--with no sacrifice of my hard-fought-for financial independence. It was the abysmal prospect, as I came in, of having to go straight to my room--with no Sister waiting for me--and beat my poor typewriter and poorer brains for some sparks of wit--when I knew in advance there wasn't a spark left in me--that sent me to the telephone.