At the end of ten days a note told me that they had returned to New York, apologizing for the fact that they had not had time to bid me good-by. Though seeing plainly enough the folly of a correspondence, I wrote in response to that note, hoping that a correspondence might ensue. But I got no answer. I got nothing. Not so much as a message was sent to me on the days when Ralph Coningsby came down. I did not resent this; I only suffered. I suffered the more because of supposing that she suffered too. And yet when I next saw her I found nothing to support that theory. When I went to New York for a few days in February I called, but they were not at home. Having left my card, I waited for a message that would name an hour when I should find them; but I waited in vain. During the four days my visit lasted I heard nothing kindlier than what Cantyre repeated, that they were sorry to have been out when I came. As I sent them flowers before leaving the city, a note from Mrs. Barry thanked me for them cordially; but there was not a syllable in it that gave me an excuse for writing in response. Reason told me that it was better that it should be so, but reason had ceased to be sufficient as a guide. In March I made an errand that took me to town for a week-end, and on the Sunday afternoon I called again at the house which had so curiously become the focusing-point of my destiny. Miss Barry was at home and receiving. I found her with two or three other people, and she welcomed me as doubtless she had welcomed them. Even when I had outstayed them she betrayed none of that matter-of-course intimacy which had marked her attitude toward me in December. She seemed to have retired behind all sorts of mental fortifications over which I couldn’t at first make my way. When we were seated in the style of Darby and Joan at the opposite corners of a slumbering fire she told me her father had made one hurried visit from California, and that, now that he had returned to the Pacific coast, she and her mother were thinking of joining him there. Should they do so, they would probably remain till it was time to go to Long Island in June. Two or three protestations against this absence came to my lips, but of course I couldn’t utter them. I could have sworn that she was saying to herself, “You don’t seem to care!” though aloud it became, “We’ve never been in California, and we want to see what it’s like.” I seized the opportunity to rejoin, “You’ve a fancy for seeing what things are like, haven’t you?” She took up the challenge instantly. “Why do you say that?” “Only because of what you’ve said at different times yourself.” “Such as?” “I don’t want to quote. I was thinking of the taste you’ve frequently acknowledged for making experiments.” “Experiments in things—or people?” “I was thinking of people.” She marched right into my camp by saying, boldly, “Oh, you mean the number of times I’ve—I’ve broken engagements?”