Dal and Anne stood on each side of him and patted him on the shoulders and glared across at me. I felt that if I was a rock, Jim’s ship had struck on me and was sinking, as he said, because of me. I began to crumble. “What--what time does she leave?” I asked, wavering. “Ten: nine; KIT, are you going to do it?” “No!” I gave a last clutch at my resolution. “People who do that kind of thing always get into trouble. She might miss her train. She’s almost certain to miss her train.” “You’re temporizing,” Dallas said sternly. “We won’t let her miss her train; you can be sure of that.” “Jim,” Anne broke in suddenly, “hasn’t she a picture of Bella? There’s not the faintest resemblance between Bella and Kit.” Jim became downcast again. “I sent her a miniature of Bella a couple of years ago,” he said despondently. “Did it myself.” But Dal said he remembered the miniature, and it looked more like me than Bella, anyhow. So we were just where we started. And down inside of me I had a premonition that I was going to do just what they wanted me to do, and get into all sorts of trouble, and not be thanked for it after all. Which was entirely correct. And then Leila Mercer came and banged at the door and said that dinner had been announced ages ago and that everybody was famishing. With the hurry and stress, and poor Jim’s distracted face, I weakened. “I feel like a cross between an idiot and a criminal,” I said shortly, “and I don’t know particularly why every one thinks I should be the victim for the sacrifice. But if you will promise to get her off early to her train, and if you will stand by me and not leave me alone with her, I--I might try it.” “Of course, we’ll stand by you!” they said in chorus. “We won’t let you stick!” And Dal said, “You’re the right sort of girl, Kit. And after it’s all over, you’ll realize that it’s the biggest kind of lark. Think how you are saving the old lady’s feeling! When you are an elderly person yourself, Kit, you will appreciate what you are doing tonight.” Yes, they said they would stand by me, and that I was a heroine and the only person there clever enough to act the part, and that they wouldn’t let me stick! I am not bitter now, but that is what they promised. Oh, I am not defending myself; I suppose I deserved everything that happened. But they told me that she would be there only between trains, and that she was deaf, and that I had an opportunity to save a fellow-being from ruin. So in the end I capitulated. When they opened the door into the living room, Max Reed had arrived and was helping to hide a decanter and glasses, and somebody said a cab was at the door. And that was the way it began. Chapter III. I MIGHT HAVE KNOWN IT