"Is that all the police know?" she questioned rapidly. He did not answer immediately, his attention apparently centered on the newspaper which lay folded so that the headlines were in view: Coroner's Inquest Returns Open Verdict "It is all that the police will admit knowing," he said at last. "I must remind you that you have not answered my question: how often does Kitty see Major Wallace?" "I am unable to tell you." There was a touch of insolence in her manner and his eyes sparkled with anger. "I do not keep tab on Kitty--" their glances crossed--"and I don't intend to." Potter hesitated a second, then rose. "It was good of you to see me," he announced. His tone was perfunctory. "My interest in Kitty prompted the visit." He stooped over and picked up a glove which had slipped from his restless fingers to the floor. "Good-by. Don't trouble to ring for James; I know my way out." But Mrs. Parsons was already half across the room and her finger touched the electric button with some force. James was a trifle out of breath when he reached them. "Take Mr. Potter down in the lift," she directed. "Good evening, Ben," and with a slight, graceful gesture, she dismissed him. Once more back in her chair Mrs. Parsons settled down in comfort and permitted her thoughts to wander far afield. It was not often that she allowed herself to dwell on the past. "So Ted Rodgers is taking a hand in the game," she murmured, unconscious that she spoke aloud. "And Ben Potter is interested in--Kitty." Putting back her head, she laughed heartily. She was still chuckling to herself when James, the butler, came in to announce dinner. Dinner with Mrs. Parsons was a formal affair even when alone, and she looked with approval at the spotless linen, the burnished silver, and glittering glass. She thoroughly appreciated her butler's taste in table decoration. Domestic troubles, which vexed other women, never touched her household. She had one theory which she always put into practice--to pay her servants just a little more than her neighbors gave their domestics, and it was seldom that they left her employ. Washington society had found that Mrs. Parsons was wealthy enough to indulge in her whims, and, bringing, as she did, letters of introduction from far-off California to influential residents of the national Capital, she had been entertained at houses to which newcomers frequently waited for years to gain the _entr�e_. Well gowned, handsome rather than pretty, quick of wit, Mrs. Parsons soon attained a place for herself in the kaleidoscopic life of the cosmopolitan city, and, giving up her suite of rooms at the New Willard had, three months before, purchased a house on fashionable Wyoming Avenue.