They were returning one night from one of their most successful evenings; Joan as usual on the front seat beside the chauffeur, where she might enjoy the rush of the cool night air upon her face, and hear as little as possible of the billing and cooing of the honeymooners in the tonneau behind. There seemed more of this than usual, little giggling exclamations and audible embraces which made the girl wince and the chauffeur grin surreptitiously. "Really, Father!" protested Joan over her shoulder. There was something physically nauseating to her in those amorous echoes from the tonneau. No wonder servants laughed! It made of love a travesty and a mocking. She was glad when they reached home. The Major stepped out gallantly to assist the ladies, but miscalculated his impetus, and after a series of complicated maneuvers brought up seated upon the curbstone. The chauffeur burst into an uncontrollable guffaw, in which his mistress heartily joined. "Oh, you Dick Fizz!" she laughed, wiping her eyes. "I knew it would get you yet. _Look_ at your funny papa, dearie! Lit up like a Christmas-tree!" The Major murmured something reprovingly about the duties of hospitality, which he found some difficulty in pronouncing; but once upon his feet, he gave an arm to each of them and managed the steps without further mishap. In the hall Joan, who had not laughed, said to her step-mother in a low voice, "Is he--drunk?" "Oh, not enough to hurt," replied the lady, still laughing. It occurred to Joan that she herself was a little flushed and expansive. "I can handle him, all right. Don't you worry! I always know a gentleman by the way he carries his liquor." "Do you?" said Joan. "Sure thing! And Major's a perfect gentleman always. Don't you fret." Joan mounted quietly to her room, and undressed in the dark. She did not want to see her face in the mirror, afraid of the disgust, the loathing, that must be reflected there--Her father--drunk! The man to whom her mother had given her love and her life, tipsily furnishing amusement for a woman who judged gentlemen by the way they carried their liquor!... She recalled one other time when she had seen her father in his present condition. She remembered her mother's stricken, tragic face as she hurried him out of sight, explaining tremulously, "Daddy's ill, darling. No games with Daddy to-night--he's ill." "But he wants to play! Look, mamma, he _wants_ to play!" the small Joan had insisted, to no avail. And when this strangely interesting Daddy was safe in bed, with Ellen Neal mounting guard, Joan had been hurried out to the nearest church (which happened to be a Catholic one, for Mary's was a casual sort of religion that boasted neither creed nor prejudice); and there, before a statue where little lamps burned, the child had prayed hard, as she was bid, that her father might never be ill in just that way again. "God may listen to you, even if He's tired of listening to me!" the mother had whispered, desperately.