"Oh, really, Frances?" the frump was saying, "How exceedingly nice of you, dear!" The professor was occupied for the moment with a moth. "I hope I won't frighten you in them as you say your maid was frightened at you. If pajamas are unbecoming to you, why just imagine me in them!" By Jove, I was devilish glad I was not supposed to hear, for I didn't want to be required to imagine it. But as for them being unbecoming to my darling--well, I knew she knew what I thought! Later, when the evening had shaded off and the ladies had left us, we sat in the smoking-room talking till late. I was astonished to find Foxy Grandpa devilish entertaining and clever--not a bad sort at all. He seemed to have no recollection of me at all, and therefore no grudges. I had made up my mind by this time I wasn't going to marry the frump, no matter what came or what Billings wanted, and I would tell him so in the morning. But whoever did marry her--and it looked like it was going to be the professor--would have some sort of compensation in Foxy Grandpa's entertaining stories of Eastern scandal. Billings' cub brother smoked in a corner of the room by himself and drank innumerable slugs of whisky straight. Once I saw his father go over to him and seem to remonstrate, but without effect. Billings wanted his father to try my special import of cigarettes, so I sent for Jenkins, who had arrived, to bring some down. And when he saw Foxy Grandpa calmly sitting there by me, pulling at a straw, he almost lost his balance. But I shook my head with covert warning. "Ever see me before--eh?" asked the cub harshly, as he waved aside the cigarettes Jenkins extended. "Last Wednesday night--remember?" "Yes, sir," replied Jenkins, hesitatingly. Then he rolled an eye at me and corrected himself hastily but firmly: "No, sir; I don't recall _ever_ seeing you before, sir." Of course, I knew he had not, but the cub got up with a sour laugh. Then with a murmured gruff apology, he withdrew, saying he had a headache and was going to bed. And, by Jove, what a look he gave me from the door! "Midnight!" ejaculated some one at length, just as the professor finished a jolly rum but interesting yarn of adventures in Tibet. We all rose and I was answering a challenge of Billings' for a Sunday morning game of billiards, when all of a sudden a scream rang out from somewhere above. Then came a greater commotion--two voices raised in rapid and excited colloquy. On top of this another scream, louder and more piercing--a woman's call for help. "One of the maids," Billings hazarded. "A mouse--" "That was Frances!" I answered him excitedly, and we all piled out into the hall and peered down its long vista. Down one of the dimly illumined angles of the great stairway a white figure darted, then paused, abashed, crouching back against the wall at sight of us advancing. Above her sounded a man's voice, and even as she screamed again, he overtook her, clasping her arm.