Baird was looking up at the windows of the Continental, across the street. Mildred's glance slowly and carelessly followed his. At one window stood the little general, gazing abstractedly out over the gardens. At another window Mildred saw Harding; at a third, her maid; at a fourth, Harding's assistant, Drawl; at a fifth, three servants of the retinue. Except the general, all were looking at her. "You've married a very extraordinary man," said Baird, in a correct tone of admiration. "One of the ablest and most interesting men we've got, _I_ think." "So you are free again?" said Mildred, looking at him with a queer, cold smile. "Yes, and no," replied Stanley. "I hope to be entirely free. It's her move next. I'm expecting it every day. But I'm thoroughly respectable. Won't you and the general dine with me?" "Thanks, but I'm sailing for home to-morrow or next day." "That's interesting," said Baird, with enthusiasm. "So am I. What ship do you go on?" "I don't know yet. I'm to decide this afternoon, after lunch." She laughed. "I'm sitting here waiting for someone to ask me to lunch. I've not had even coffee yet." "Lunch with me!" cried Baird. "I'll go get the general--I know him slightly." "I didn't say anything about the general," said Mildred. Stanley smiled apologetically. "It wouldn't do for you to go about with me--not when my missus is looking for grounds for divorce." "Why not?" said Mildred. "So's my husband." "You busted up, too? Now, that's what _I_ call jolly." And he cast a puzzled glance up at the abstracted general. "I say, Mildred, this is no place for either of us, is it?" "I'd rather be where there's food," confessed she. "You think it's a joke, but I assure you-- Oh, you WERE joking--about YOUR bust-up?" "No, indeed," she assured him. "I walked out a while ago, and I couldn't go back if I would--and I don't think I would if I could." "That's foolish. Better go back," advised he. He was preparing hastily to decamp from so perilous a neighborhood. "One marriage is about like another, once you get through the surface. I'm sure you'll be better off than--back with your stepfather." "I've no intention of going to his house," she declared. "Oh, there's your brother. I forgot." "So had I forgotten him. I'll not go there, either. In fact, I've not thought where I'll go." "You seem to have done mighty little thinking before you took a very serious step for a woman." He was uneasily eying the rigid, abstracted little figure a story up across the way. "Those things aren't a question of thinking," said she absently. "I never thought in my life--don't think I could if I tried. But when the time came I--I walked out." She came back to herself, laughed. "I don't understand why I'm telling you all this, especially as you're mad with fright and wild to get away. Well, good-by, Stanley."