The rest of the day and that night she hid in her room and made no effort to resist the terror that preyed upon her. Just as our strength is often the source of weakness, so our weaknesses often give birth to strength. Her terror of the little general, given full swing, shrieked and grimaced itself into absurdity. She was ashamed of her orgy, was laughing at it as the sun and intoxicating air of a typical New York morning poured in upon her. She accepted Mrs. Belloc's invitation to take a turn through the park and up Riverside Drive in a taxicab, came back restored to her normal state of blind confidence in the future. About noon Stanley Baird telephoned. "We must not see each other again for some time," said he. "I rather suspect that you--know--who may be having you watched." "I'm sure of it," said she. "He warned me." "Don't let that disturb you," pursued Stanley. "A man--a singing teacher--his name's Eugene Jennings--will call on you this afternoon at three. Do exactly as he suggests. Let him do all the talking." She had intended to tell Baird frankly that she thought, indeed knew, that it was highly dangerous for him to enter into her affairs in any way, and to urge him to draw off. She felt that it was only fair to act so toward one who had been unselfishly generous to her. But now that the time for speaking had come, she found herself unable to speak. Only by flatly refusing to have anything to do with his project could she prevail upon him. To say less than that she had completely and finally changed her mind would sound, and would be, insincere. And that she could not say. She felt how noble it would be to say this, how selfish, and weak, too, it was to cling to him, possibly to involve him in disagreeable and even dangerous complications, but she had no strength to do what she would have denounced another as base for not doing. Instead of the lofty words that flow so freely from the lips of stage and fiction heroines, instead of the words that any and every reader of this history would doubtless have pronounced in the same circumstances, she said: "You're quite sure you want to go on?" "Why not?" came instantly back over the wire. "He is a very, very relentless man," replied she. "Did he try to frighten you?" "I'm afraid he succeeded." "You're not going back on the career!" exclaimed he excitedly. "I'll come down there and--" "No, no," cried she. "I was simply giving you a chance to free yourself." She felt sure of him now. She scrambled toward the heights of moral grandeur. "I want you to stop. I've no right to ask you to involve yourself in my misfortunes. Stanley, you mustn't. I can't allow it." "Oh, fudge!" laughed he. "Don't give me these scares. Don't forget--Jennings at three. Good-by and good luck."