Jones, taken with her mobile mouth, her lovely eyes, the oval of her handsome face, said lightly: "It seems to me that you might assume any part." Lennox struck out. "Paliser hocuspocused her with a fake marriage. He----" "Oh," Cassy gently put in, "I have no one to blame but myself. I ought to have known better." Jones nodded. "Probably you did know. The misadventure is rare of which we are not warned in advance. We cannot see the future but the future sees us. It sends us messages which we call premonitions." Instantly Cassy was back in the Tamburini's room, where she had seen both beauty and horror. She had not reached the latter yet and the sudden vision Lennox dissipated. "Stuff and nonsense! Haven't you anything else to say?" Amiably Jones turned to him. "I can say that no one is wise on an empty stomach." He turned to Cassy. "The Splendor is not far. Will you dine with us, Mrs. Paliser?" Violently Lennox repeated it; "Mrs. Paliser! Miss Cara is no more Mrs. Paliser than you are." "To err is highly literary," Jones with great meekness replied. "I hear that it is even human." Cassy reached again for the bundle. "It is only natural. If I had been told in advance, I could not have believed it. I could not have believed that mock marriages occur anywhere except in cheap fiction. But we live and unlearn. Now I must run." Lennox took her hand. "I owe you a debt. Count on me." He spoke gravely and the gravity of it, the force that he exhaled, comforted Cassy's bruised little heart and the comfort, the first that she had had, made her lip twitch. None of that, though! Reacting she rallied and smiled. "Good-bye--and good luck!" Jones saw her to the door, followed her out, followed her down to the street, where for a moment he detained her. "Just a word, if you don't mind. You have been abominably treated and you seek no revenge. That is very fine. You have been abominably treated and you bear no malice. That is superior. You have been abominably treated and you accept it with a smile. That is alchemy. It is only a noble nature that can extract the beautiful from the base. Where do you live?" At the change of key Cassy laughed but she told him. "Good-bye," she added. "My love to your cat." She passed on into the sunset. The bundle seemed heavy now, but her heart was lighter. She had got it off, Lennox knew, presently a young woman would be informed and though she could not be expected to dance at the wedding, yet, after all---- The Park took her. XXVI When Cassy had gone, Jones went back to his rooms. He went absently, his mind not on her story, which was old as the Palisades, but on a situation, entirely new, which it had suggested. "Nice girl," he remarked as he re-entered the workshop. "Suppose we go and have dinner." Sombrely Lennox looked up. At the table where he sat, he had been fingering some papers. He threw them down. "I am going to have a word with Paliser."