It was a warm, bright May day. There was not a cloud in the sky. Roger Delane had arrived and the Bings were giving a dinner that evening. The best people of Hazelmead were coming over in motor-cars. Phyllis and Roger had had a long ride together that day on the new Kentucky saddle horses. Mrs. Bing had spent the morning in Hazelmead and had stayed to lunch with Mayor and Mrs. Stacy. She had returned at four and cut some flowers for the table and gone to her room for an hour's rest when the young people returned. She was not yet asleep when Phyllis came into the big bedroom. Mrs. Bing lay among the cushions on her couch. She partly rose, tumbled the cushions into a pile and leaned against them. "Heavens! I'm tired!" she exclaimed. "These women in Hazelmead hang on to one like a lot of hungry cats. They all want money for one thing or another--Red Cross or Liberty bonds or fatherless children or tobacco for the soldiers or books for the library. My word! I'm broke and it seems as if each of my legs hung by a thread." Phyllis smiled as she stood looking down at her mother. "How beautiful you look!" the fond mother exclaimed. "If he didn't propose to-day, he's a chump." "But he did," said Phyllis. "I tried to keep him from it, but he just would propose in spite of me." The girl's face was red and serious. She sat down in a chair and began to remove her hat. Mrs. Bing rose suddenly, and stood facing Phyllis. "I thought you loved him," she said with a look of surprise. "So I do," the girl answered. "What did you say?" "I said no." "What!" "I refused him!" "For God's sake, Phyllis! Do you think you can afford to play with a man like that? He won't stand for it." "Let him sit for it then and, mother, you might as well know, first as last, that I am not playing with him." There was a calm note of firmness in the voice of the girl. She was prepared for this scene. She had known it was coming. Her mother was hot with irritating astonishment. The calmness of the girl in suddenly beginning to dig a grave for this dear ambition--rich with promise--in the very day when it had come submissively to their feet, stung like the tooth of a serpent. She stood very erect and said with an icy look in her face: "You young upstart! What do you mean?" There was a moment of frigid silence in which both of the women began to turn cold. Then Phyllis answered very calmly as she sat looking down at the bunch of violets in her hand: "It means that I am married, mother." Mrs. Bing's face turned red. There was a little convulsive movement of the muscles around her mouth. She folded her arms on her breast, lifted her chin a bit higher and asked in a polite tone, although her words fell like fragments of cracked ice: "Married! To whom are you married?" "To Gordon King." Phyllis spoke casually as if he were a piece of ribbon that she had bought at a store.