“Friends--yes,” he conceded. “But we’re not going to see each other.” “And what would I say to Pete?” “Something clever and satisfying. By the way, how did you manage to get away with it when you reached home?” She laughed delightedly. She was looking her most innocent, most youthful. “Oh, _such_ a time!” cried she. “Mother-- You don’t know mother, so you can’t appreciate. But you will, when you do know her. It was a three-cornered row--Heck and mother and I. Heck took a shine to you, so he was really about half on my side. I told just how I met you--the whole story--except I didn’t tell the exact truth about the picture.” Her look was so queer that he said in alarm: “What did you say about it?” “We’ll talk of that later,” replied she--and his knowledge of her methods did not allow him to receive with an eased mind this hasty insistence on delay. “Mother wanted to know who you were, and, of course, I couldn’t tell her--not anything that would satisfy a woman like mother. She forbade me ever to see you again. I told her that, on the contrary, I’d see you this morning. She raved--my, how she did rave!” And Rix burst into peals of laughter. “You ought to have heard! She’s so conventional. She accused me--but you can imagine.” “Yes, I can,” said he dryly. “And she’s right--absolutely right. We’ll not see each other again.” “Oh, but she wants to see you,” rejoined Miss Richmond. “She can hardly wait to see you, herself. She’s badly frightened lest you’ll not come.” Roger let his absolute disbelief show in his face. There must somewhere be bounds to what this resourceful and resolute young person could accomplish. These assertions of hers were beyond those bounds--far beyond them. “It was this way,” pursued Miss Richmond with innocent but intense satisfaction in her own cleverness. “I pointed out to her that, if I didn’t go to you and keep on with the picture, Hanky--that’s Peter Vanderkief--would realize I’d been flirting _wildly_ with a strange man I had picked up in the woods and would break the engagement. And mother is set on my marrying Peter. So she sent me off herself this morning and took charge of Peter to keep him safe. Am I not clever?” “I can think of nothing to add to what I have already said on that point,” observed Roger mildly. “I am actually flabbergasted!” “So was mother,” said she with innocent, young triumph. “And she used just that word. Here’s a note from her to you.” Miss Richmond took a letter from the pocket of her jacket and held it toward him. He made no move to advance and take it from her. Instead he made a gesture that was the beginning of a carrying out of the boyish impulse to put his hands behind his back. “Do you want me to get up and bring it to you?” said she. “I want nothing to do with it,” said he coldly. “I don’t know your mother. I’ve no doubt she’s an estimable woman, but I’ve no time to enlarge the circle of my acquaintances.”