MANFORD didn't know what first gave him the sense that Lita had slipped out among the departing guests; slipped out, and not come back. When the idea occurred to him it was already lodged in his mind, hard and definite as a verified fact. She had vanished from among them into the darkness. But only a moment ago; there was still time to dash round to the shed in the service court, where motors were sometimes left for the night, and where he had dropped his Buick just in time to rush in and dress for dinner. He would have no trouble in overtaking her. The Buick was gone. Hatless and coatless in the soft night air, he rushed down the drive on its track. No moon tonight, but a deceptive velvet mildness, such as sometimes comes in spring before the wind hauls round to a frosty quarter. He hurried on, out of the open gate, along the road toward the village; and there, at the turn of the New York turnpike--just the road he had expected her to take--stood his Buick, a figure stooping over it in the lamp-glare. A furious stab of jealousy shot through him--"There's a man with her; who?" But the man was only his own overcoat, which he had left on the seat of the car when he dashed home for dinner, and which was now drawn over Lita's shoulders. It was she who stood in the night, bent over the mysteries of the car's insides. She looked up and called out: "Oh, look here--give me a hand, will you? The thing's stuck." Manford moved around within lamp-range, and she stared a moment, her little face springing out at him uncannily from the darkness. Then she broke into a laugh. "You?" "Were you asking a total stranger to repair your motor? Rather risky, on a country road in the middle of the night." She shrugged and smiled. "Not as risky as doing it myself. The chances are that even a total stranger would know more about the inside of this car than I do." "Lita, you're mad! Damn the car. What are you doing here anyhow?" She paused, one hand on the bonnet, while with the other she pushed back a tossed lock from her round forehead. "Running away," she said simply. Manford took a quick breath. The thing was, he admonished himself, to take this lightly, as nearly as possible in her own key--above all to avoid protesting and exclaiming. But his heart was beating like a trip-hammer. She was more of a fool than he had thought. "Running away from that dinner? I don't blame you. But it's over. Still, if you want to wash out the memory of it, get into the motor and we'll go for a good spin--like that one when we came back from Greenwich." Her lips parted in a faint smile. "Oh, but that ended up at Cedarledge." "Well--?" "Bless you; I'm not going back." "Where _are_ you going?" "To New York first--after that I don't know... Perhaps my aunt's... Perhaps Hollywood..." The rage in him exploded. "Perhaps Dawnside--eh? Own up!" She laughed and shrugged again. "Own up? Why not? Anywhere where I can dance and laugh and be hopelessly low-lived and irresponsible."