He took her hand--the warm touch was still strong, still reassuring. Only the eyes that he was not looking at now seemed singularly unsure, as if they had seen something they had pondered over lightly, as a mere possibility, years ago, take on sudden impatient body and demand to be heard. She let her hand lie lightly in his for a moment. Then she rose. “Half past twelve” she said a little stiffly. “Time for two such genuine antiques as we are to think of being put away in our cases for the night.” XXII It was three in the afternoon before Oliver walked into the Hotel Rosario again and when he did it was with the feeling that the house detective might come up at any moment, touch him quietly on the shoulder and remark that his bag _might_ be sent down to the station after him if he paid his bill and left quietly and at once. An appearance before a hoarse judge who fined him ten dollars in as many seconds had not helped his self-confidence though he kept wondering if there was a sliding scale of penalties for improper language applied to the police of St. Louis and just what would have happened if he had called the large blue policeman anything out of his A.E.F. vocabulary. Also the desk, when he called there for his key, reminded him twingingly of the dock, and the clerk behind it looked at him so knowingly as he made the request that Oliver began to construct a hasty moral defence of his whole life from the time he had stolen sugar at eight, when he was reassured by the clerk's merely saying in a voice like a wink. “Telephone call for you last night, Mr. Crowe.” _Nancy!_ With a horrible effort to keep impassive, “Yes? Who was it?” “Party didn't leave a name.” “Oh. When?” “'Bout 'leven o'clock.” “And she didn't leave any message?” Then Oliver turned pink at having betrayed himself so easily. “No-o--_she_ didn't.” The clerk's eyelid drooped a trifle. Those collegy looking boys were certainly hell with women. “Oh, well--” with a vast attempt to seem careless. “Thanks. Where's the 'phone?” “Over there” and Oliver followed the direction of the jerked thumb to shut himself up in a booth with his heart, apparently, bent upon doing queer interpretative dances and his mind full of all the most apologetic words in or out of the dictionary. “Hello. Hello. _Is this Nancy_?” “This is Mrs. S. R. Ellicott.” The voice seems extremely detached. “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Ellicott. This is Oliver--Oliver Crowe, you know. Is Nancy there?” Nor does it appear inclined toward lengthy conversation--the voice at the other end. “No.” “Well, when will she be in? I've got to take the five o'clock train Mrs. Ellicott--I've simply got to--I may lose my job if I don't--but I've got to talk to her first--I've got to explain--” “There can be very little good, I think, in your talking to her Mr. Crowe. She has told me that you both consider the engagement at an end.”