An hour in the shopping district, that is to say, up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, where everybody who was anybody was similarly occupied, shopping, nearly took the spine out of our jehu. Everywhere he imagined he saw Nancy. And half a dozen times he saw persons whom he knew, persons he had dined with in New York, persons he had met abroad. But true to human nature, they were looking toward higher things than a groom in livery. When there was no more room for bundles, the women started for Mrs. Chadwick's apartments. Said Mrs. Chadwick in French: "Where, in the name of uncommon things, did you find such a handsome groom?" "I _was_ rather lucky," replied Miss Annesley in the same tongue. "Don't you see something familiar about him?" Warburton shuddered. "Familiar? What do you mean?" "It is the groom who ran away with us." "Heavens, no!" Mrs. Chadwick raised her lorgnette. "Whatever possessed you?" "Mischief, as much as anything." "But the risk!" "I am not afraid. There was something about him that appeared very much like a mystery, and you know how I adore mysteries." "And this is the fellow we saw in the police-court, sitting among those light o' loves?" Mrs. Chadwick could not fully express her surprise. "I can't analyze the impulse which prompted me to pay his fine and engage him." "And after that affair at the carriage-door! Where is your pride?" "To tell the truth, I believe he did make a mistake. Maybe I hired him because I liked his looks." Betty glanced amusedly at the groom, whose neck and ears were red. She laughed. "You always were an extraordinary child. I do not understand it in the least. I am even worried. He may be a great criminal." "No, not a great criminal," said Betty, recollecting the ride of that morning; "but a first-class horseman, willing and obedient. I have been forced to make James serve as butler. He has been under the hands of our cook, and I have been watching them. How I have laughed! Of all droll scenes!" So she had laughed, eh? Warburton's jaws snapped. She had been watching, too? "I rode Pirate this morning--" "You rode that horse?" interrupted Mrs. Chadwick. "Yes, and he ran away with me in fine style. If it hadn't been for the new groom, I shouldn't be here, and the dinner would be a dismal failure, with me in bed with an arm or leg broken. Heavens! I never was so frightened in all my life. We went so fast against the wind that I could scarce breathe. And when it was all over, I fainted like a ninny." "Fainted! I should have thought you would. _I_ should have fallen off the animal and been killed. Betty, you certainly have neither forethought nor discretion. The very idea of your attempting to ride that animal!" "Well, I am wiser, and none the worse for the scare.... James, stop, stop!" Betty cried suddenly.