On reaching the Adams house, the girl said a quick good-by, and Pinky Payne found himself at liberty to go in and see the other members of the household, or to go home, for Miss Austin disappeared into the hall and up the staircase with the rapidity of a dissolving view. Young Payne turned away and strolled slowly back to the Waring home, wondering what it was about the disagreeable young woman that made him pay any attention to her at all. He found her the topic of discussion when he arrived. “Of all rude people,” Mrs. Peyton declared, “she was certainly the worst!” “She was!” Helen agreed. “I couldn’t make her out at all. And I don’t call her pretty, either.” “I do,” observed Emily Bates. “I call her very pretty,—and possessed of great charm.” “Charm!” scoffed Helen; “I can’t see it.” “She isn’t rude,” Pinky defended the absent. “I’m sure, Mrs. Peyton, she made her adieux most politely. Why should she have stayed longer? She didn’t know any of us,—and, perhaps she doesn’t like any of us.” “That’s it,” Gordon Lockwood stated. “She doesn’t like us,—I’m sure of that. Well, why should she, if she doesn’t want to?” “Why shouldn’t she?” countered Tyler. “She’s so terribly superior,—I can’t bear her. She acts as if she owned the earth, yet nobody knows who she is, or anything about her.” “Are we entitled to?” asked Lockwood. “Why should we inquire into her identity or history further than she chooses to enlighten us?” “Where is Miss Austin?” asked Doctor Waring, returning, quite composed and calm. “She went home,” informed Mrs. Bates. “Are you all right, John?” “Oh, yes, dear. I wasn’t ill, or anything like that. The awkward accident touched my nerves, and I wanted to run away and hide.” He smiled whimsically, looking like a naughty schoolboy, and Emily Bates took his hand and drew him down to a seat beside her. “What made you drop it, John?” she said, with a direct look into his eyes. He hesitated a moment, and his own glance wandered, then he said, “I don’t know, Emily; I suppose it was a sudden physical contraction of the muscles of my hand—and I couldn’t control it.” Mrs. Bates didn’t look satisfied, but she did not pursue the subject. Then the discussion of Anita was resumed. “How did you like her looks, Doctor Waring?” Helen Peyton asked. “I scarcely saw her,” was the quiet reply. “Did you all admire her?” “Some of us did.” Mrs. Bates answered; “I do, for one. Did you ever see her before, John?” Doctor Waring stared at the question. “Never,” he declared. “How could I have done so?” “I don’t know, I’m sure,” Mrs. Bates laughed. “I just had a sort of an impression—” “No, dear, I never saw the girl before in my life,” Waring reasserted. “And you need never want to see her again,” Robert Tyler informed him. “She’s sulky, silly and supercilious. She’s a mystery, they say, but I say she merely wants to be thought a mystery to make a little sensation. I can’t abide that sort.”