This constraint was irksome. He ventured: "How is the old boy? Sir Joseph, I mean. He's well, I hope." Her eyes widened. "Didn't you know? Didn't you read in the papers--about their death together?" "Theirs? His wife and he died together?" "Yes." "In a submarine attack?" "No, at home. It was in all the papers--about their dying on the same night, from--from ptomaine poisoning." "No!" He put a vast amount of shock and regret in the mumbled word. He explained: "I must have been out in the forest or in the mines at the time. Forgive me for opening the old wound. How long ago was it? I see you're out of mourning." "Sir Joseph abominated black; and besides, few people wear mourning in England during the war." "That's so. Poor old England! You poor Englishwomen--mothers and daughters! My God! what you've gone through! And such pluck!" Before he realized what he was doing his hand went across and touched hers, and he clenched it for just a moment of fierce sympathy. She did not resent the message. Then he muttered: "I know what it means. I lost my father and mother--not at once, of course--years apart. But to lose them both in one night!" She made a sharp attempt at self-control: "Please! I beg you--please don't speak of it." He was so sorry that he said nothing more. Marie Louise was doubly fascinating to him because she was in sorrow and afraid of something or somebody. Besides, she was inaccessible, and Ross Davidge always felt a challenge from the impossible and the inaccessible. She called for her check and paid it, and tipped the waiter and rose. She smiled wretchedly at him as he rose with her. She left the dining-car, and he sat down and cursed himself for a brute and a blunderer. He kept in the offing, so that if she wanted him she could call him, but he thought it the politer politeness not to italicize his chivalry. He was so distressed that he forgot that she had forgotten to pay him for the chair. It was good and dark when the train pulled into Washington at last. The dark gave Marie Louise another reason for dismay. The appearance of a man who had dined at Sir Joseph's, and the necessity for telling him the lie about that death, had brought on a crisis of nerves. She was afraid of the dark, but more afraid of the man who might ask still more questions. She avoided him purposely when she left the train. A porter took her hand-baggage and led her to the taxi-stand. Polly Widdicombe's car was not waiting. Marie Louise went to the front of the building to see if she might be there. She was appalled at the thought of Polly's not meeting her. She needed her blessed giggle as never before. It was a very majestic station. Marie Louise had heard people say that it was much too majestic for a railroad station. As if America did not owe more to the iron god of the rails than to any of her other deities!