"Ah," he said, supposing he had to do with an embarrassed child, "you are Miss Hazlitt, and very like your picture. I should know you anywhere." "You've seen my picture?" said Lita, with a sort of feeble hope that the question would convey her complete innocence to Dacer. She could hear her own voice twittering high and silly like a hysterical bird. "Yes, indeed," said Valentine; and the voice, which was only kind, sounded in Dacer's ears significant. "This one, isn't it? Photography"--he turned politely, including Dacer in the conversation--"is only just getting back to where it was in the days of the daguerreotype. How wonderful they were! So soft--" "Photography has always had its uses, I believe," answered Dacer in his deepest voice. He made a slight bow in the general direction of Lita. "Good-by, Miss Hazlitt," he said, and each word came with a terrible distinctness. "If you and I don't meet for some time, you'll remember me to Aurelia, I hope. She seemed to me a singularly candid, truthful nature. I admire that." He bowed also to Valentine, and was gone. Something about his manner struck Valentine as peculiar. He feared that he had interrupted one of those conversations that do not bear interruption--an impression somewhat confirmed when Miss Hazlitt snatched her hat from the sofa and ran out of the room without a word. Left alone, Valentine returned to Trivia; but he began to be nervous about the time. He did not want Doria to arrive at his apartment before he and Mrs. Hazlitt got there; so that when Alita came down, apologizing for being late, but in the tone of the habitually late, as if no one really expected you to be on time, he hurried her grimly downstairs. Freebody was waiting in the hall to open the door, and told her of her daughter's return. She showed a disposition to stay and argue the matter with him. How could it be, when she was not to come till the next day? But Freebody wouldn't argue, and Valentine was firm--they must go. "Tell Miss Lita I'll be back before seven," said Mrs. Hazlitt, and let herself be hurried out to the car. Freebody stared at her. Did not she know that Miss Hazlitt had just torn out of the house like a little mad witch? Lita had moved fast, but an angry man faster. As she left the house she could see him swinging on the step of a moving Madison Avenue car. As it was a southbound car, she hoped this meant that he was going back to his office. She had seen the address only once, when she looked up his number in the telephone book; but it was indelibly impressed on her mind, although the date of the Battle of Bosworth Field, which she had spent so much time memorizing, always escaped her. In her hurry she had forgotten not only her gloves but her purse, so that she was obliged to walk the eight or nine blocks. Walk? She almost ran, crossing all necessary streets diagonally, dodging in and out between motors. Suppose he should go out again before she got there! It was terrible!