Tangles; Tales of Some Droll Predicaments/The Way to the Wedding

by Margaret Cameron

 

THE WAY TO THE WEDDING

IT was the Wednesday after Easter. The year, being unimportant, need not be specified. Suffice it to say that, although the subway had ceased to be a novelty in New York, it had not yet been extended to Long Island, and Brooklyn Bridge was still the greatest thoroughfare across the East River.

Ned McEwen, strolling along the second level of the great bridge on his way to that part of the Borough of Brooklyn known as Bay Ridge, where he was going to see Howard Forbes married, caught sight of a large bulletin announcing the train he sought, and near it an ascending stair, toward which he turned. A moment later his attention was attracted by a young woman who stood just beyond the ticket kiosk; first because hers was the fine, free, unconscious type of beauty of which he had dreamed much during his long absence from his native land, and later because she seemed, although in evening dress, to be alone and watching for some one.

As he approached and her scrutinizing glance passed from other faces to his, she started, stared for an incredulous moment, and moved swiftly toward him, smiling and holding out her hand.

"NED McEWEN, OF ALL MEN!" SHE REJOICED

"Ned McEwen, of all men!" she rejoiced. "I can't be mistaken! You are Ned McEwen?"

"I never doubted it before," he warmly assured her, and there was nothing in his manner to indicate, even to a keen observer, that he had not the faintest idea who she was or where they had met, "but it's so long since anything as delightful as this has happened to me that it makes me question my own identity!"

"Oh yes," she nodded, laughing and withdrawing her hand from his, "you're manifestly Ned McEwen! And neither time nor tide has changed you a bit."

"Nor you," said he.

His congenital inability to remember faces was a failing concerning which McEwen was extremely sensitive, and so cleverly had he learned to conceal it, so expert had he become in tracing connections during an apparently casual conversation, that only his closest friends realized how often he was at a disadvantage. It was instantly apparent to him, from this girl's manner, that he had at some time known her rather well, and he hoped, by dissembling his perplexity and by careful probing, to discover her identity without betraying his own weakness. So he smiled cordially down at her, repeating, "Nor you."

"Of course you're going to the wedding," she affirmed rather than questioned; and here, he congratulated himself, was his first clue. Since he had never met Florence Keeler, the bride of the evening, this ready inference as to his destination argued that he was intimately connected in his companion's mind with Howard Forbes. Straightway he began calling to mind girls whom both he and Forbes had known, and they were many, but into none of those memories could he fit this woman. Meanwhile, he responded:

"Of course I am. And you?"

"Naturally. But what I want to know is how you happen to be here? I thought you abode in some outlandish tropical clime. Cuba, was it? Or—somewhere in Central America?"

"Neither. I live in Mexico. I hope you know the difference," he whimsically commented. "Few people do, I find."

"I think I've heard that Cuba is bounded by San Juan Hill and Havana Harbor," was the dry retort, "but as to just where Mexico leaves off and Central America begins—frankly, I shouldn't care to be asked. Your home is still in Mexico, then?"

"My work is still in Mexico," he discriminated. "Home I have none, except in the broad sense. Perhaps one has to live some time in foreign countries to realize that 'home,' in the last analysis, really means almost anywhere within the boundaries of one's own country."

"Yes, I know," said she, and immediately set him wondering whether she had lived abroad. "Then you don't like Mexico?"

"On the contrary, I like it very much," he declared, conscious that she was learning a good deal about him and telling nothing of herself. "It's the most picturesque—and in many ways the most interesting—country in this hemisphere. But I'm an American, and this is 'home.' And I hadn't been here in so long that the social side of me was getting atrophied, so when I received Howard's letter urging me to come to the wedding and meet some of the old crowd again, I decided that the moment was auspicious—and here I am. Now, that's enough about me. Tell me of yourself."

"Oh, there's nothing about me that you don't already know from Howard and the rest," she carelessly returned. "When did you arrive?"

"This afternoon."

"Then you haven't seen Howard?"

"I haven't seen anybody but you. And I don't think you realize what abominable correspondents 'Howard and the rest' are."

"Oh—really? Haven't they told you anything about me?" A flicker of amusement came into the woman's eyes, and she looked at him so quizzically that he quaked lest he had made a false step. Her next words relieved him. "You're sure the fault wasn't with the postal service? Because I seem to remember hearing rumors, from time to time, that you must be either dead or paralyzed—or married."

"Well—guilty," he confessed; and they both laughed. "I like to get letters—and I always intend to answer them."

"Virtuous person! That's so enlightening to your friends! Still—good intentions are said to make excellent pavement. By the way, we're going to a wedding, and inasmuch as Tempus has probably not abated his usual pace, don't you think we should be fugiting ourselves?"

"By all means! But—are you alone? I thought—you seemed to be waiting for some one."

"I half promised to meet the Taylors here—you don't know them, I think—but as they're always late, I warned them that I should go on with any acquaintance who came along—and you came." She shot a roguish glance at him, to which he promptly replied:

"Then let's go quickly, lest they arrive and spoil my tête-à-tête with you."

"Do you know that this is the way?" she demurred, as he turned again toward the near-by stair. "Would it be better to ask and make sure?"

"Oh no; this is all right," asserted McEwen.

"You've been over to the Keelers' before, then?"

"Never. But Howard sent me most explicit directions. This is right." He began to realize that he had entered upon a path beset with dangers unforeseen, and that if he was to be alone with this girl all the way to Bay Ridge he must either find out quickly who she was or be ignominiously detected. Therefore, as they climbed together to the upper platform, he hazarded, "From your unfamiliarity with Brooklyn trains, I take it you haven't seen a great deal of Miss Keeler."

"No—not a great deal," she admitted, and again her amused, speculative glance disquieted him. "To be sure, I called upon her"—this was apparently a casual afterthought—"but that time I drove over, with Bobbie and some other people, so I learned nothing about trains—except that it's wiser to take one." She chuckled reminiscently. "Our driver didn't know Brooklyn, and of course none of us did! We got lost, and drove all over the place, and were disgracefully late when we finally arrived at the Keelers'."

"I begin to understand why Howard wrote me that I could drive if I wished, but that he strongly advised the train," said McEwen, laughing. At the time this conversation took place, it will be remembered, taxicabs were unknown in New York, and automobiles were comparatively few.

"Did he? Good for Howard! I'll tell Bobbie that. Bobbie was furious—indeed, we all but came to blows—because I simply would not have a carriage to-night. Having had one experience in driving from New York to Bay Ridge, I knew I'd have to start before dark, with my dinner in a basket and a map of Brooklyn in my hand, or else risk missing the ceremony, and I much preferred to come this way—especially as I expected to meet the Taylors here. By the way, Bobbie's sick to-night. That's the reason I'm alone."

"Oh? Then I shall not see him at the wedding," he regretted, racking his brain for memory of anybody named Robert among Forbes's friends. Then, to explain what must seem to her an unpardonable oversight, "I—I hoped he might be coming over later."

"Oh, you remember about Bobbie, then? You waited a long time before mentioning it!"

"I've been far too busy thinking about you to waste any time on 'Bobbie,'" he avowed, truthfully enough. Was the man her brother? Her cousin? Then, for the first time, it occurred to him that she might be married. Could this "Bobbie" be her husband? A line of cars wound toward them around the loop, and he added: "We're in luck. Here comes our particular serpent."

"Are you sure?" she queried. "There are so many of these trains. Wouldn't it be well to ask some one about it?"

"It isn't necessary. This is the one," he affirmed. "'Fifth Avenue'—you see the sign on the front? That's the train Howard told me to take from this platform. It's all right."

"Brooklyn Bridge always was a mystic maze to mc," she said, preceding him into the car. "I have never crossed it without asking directions of every uniform in sight. Men never do that, do they? But then," slyly, "there are so many things we women don't know, that it doesn't mortify us particularly to acknowledge our ignorance of one more." At this McEwen turned a penetrating glance upon her, but she smiled back at him with such frank amusement that he decided it must have been a random shot.

"Now," he enjoined, as they found seats and settled down for a long chat, "tell me all about yourself!"

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"Thats rather a large order, Ned," she parried, laughing. "Shall I begin with my name, age, color, and previous condition of servitude?"

"Do!" he lightly recommended, devoutly hoping that she would, and at the same time wondering uneasily how well this smiling woman had known him and his weaknesses. "Why not be thorough?"

"Why be obvious?" she tossed back. "My name you know; my age—you should be able to approximate; my color speaks for itself; and my servitude, past and present, I prefer to forget—when I can. Still, I was prepared to offer them all up in identification when I saw you coming."

"Why?" he boldly challenged. "Did you think my memory so much less trustworthy than yours?"

"Everybody's memory is treacherous sometimes, isn't it?" she submitted, simply. "I know mine is. And it wasn't to be expected that you should recognize me so promptly."

"Again, why?" He was watching her narrowly, suspecting mockery; but, although she was laughing a little, her eyes and lips seemed guileless.

"Oh—because. It's so many years—"

"Just how many? Do you remember?" he interrupted, grasping at this opportunity, "I confess to being a little shaky."

"It's tactful of you to forget some things," she commended.

"It isn't tact; it's fact. I'm afraid I've really forgotten. Do you know just how long it is since we last met?"

"Yes, I remember exactly—but it's more years than you should ask me to count. To be sure, they haven't made much outward and visible impression upon you, but people say I'm changed. You don't find me so?" She looked at him with a doubtful half-smile, and he felt that perhaps he had entangled himself in this web quite needlessly. Apparently she had not expected him to recognize her. However, nothing remained to him now but to persevere in the course he had chosen, so he stoutly declared:

"Not a bit. You look just as you always did. Or else it's your voice—or possibly your smile. There are so many characteristics by which one may recognize a friend that it's a little difficult sometimes to decide which is the most potent."

Indeed, he was honestly puzzling over just that point. Something about her—a smile, an inflection, a trick of the eye, he could not quite make out what it was—tormented him by its elusive familiarity, but when he thought he had captured it and fitted it to a memory it was gone. Having failed to elicit from the lady any direct information about herself, he now determined to try negative methods. If he could not learn who she was, he would endeavor to find out who she was not, and thus, by a process of elimination, possibly solve the riddle. Meanwhile, though she would not talk about herself, there might be other bait which would tempt her to disclosures.

"You said 'Bobbie' was ill," he reminded her, positive that he had never called any man by that name, but uncertain whether he had ever known this one well enough to allude to him as Bob. "I hope it's not serious—but of course if it were you wouldn't be here."

"Oh no, it isn't serious—only uncomfortable. It's lumbago. I offered to stay home from the wedding, but Bobbie wouldn't listen to it, so I said I'd come with the Taylors. My conscience hurts, though. Lumbago's such a wicked thing to be left alone with!"

"Salve your conscience, then, by telling me all about 'Bobbie,'" he suggested, smiling again over the name. "Remember how long I've been away, and how I hunger and thirst for news of people. Begin with him, won't you?"

"Oh, it wouldn't be modest for me to talk about Bobbie," she laughingly protested. "Bobbie's mine, you know, and it isn't pretty to brag. Ask somebody else. No, really," replying to a gesture, "I couldn't trust myself to talk about Bobbie. It would be all in superlatives."

McEwen was beginning to have an uncomfortable conviction that his companion was perfectly aware of his embarrassment, and that he was being skilfully baited, and he resolved that if this were true he would beat her at her own game, discover her identity by hook or by crook, and never admit that he had been puzzled. But to accomplish this he must walk warily.

"Very well," said he, proceeding on the theory that she might be Marion Deering, whom he remembered as a particularly attractive girl, with a facile wit, although his mind retained no more impression of her physical appearance than as if it had been a schoolboy's slate washed clean. "If you won't talk about 'Bobbie,' perhaps you'll consent to tell me about Tom—who, by the way, is even a worse correspondent than I am,"

"Tom?" she questioned, her head tipped to one side, like a bird's.

"Yes, Tom!"

"Tom—oh, Tom Deering?"

"Precisely. Tom Deering." Through half-closed laughing eyes he watched her.

"He bought a fruit ranch in California, several years ago, and has lived on it ever since," she glibly told him. "He'8 married, you know."

"Yes, I know. When did you see him last?"

"I? Oh—haven't seen him for—for a long time."

"No?" He felt that he was closing in upon her.

"No."

"I thought he came East every little while?"

"So he does. But it happens that I've never been here when he was."

"No?"

"No. By the way, Marion—of course you remember his sister Marion?"

"Rather!"

"She's in California now, visiting Tom," she informed him, in a casual tone. "I had a letter from her yesterday, bitterly lamenting that she was not to be with us to-night, and sending her love to any of the old set who appeared. I suppose that includes you."

"Thanks." McEwen gave no sign of defeat. "I'm sorry she isn't here, but perhaps she'll return before I go away. She was a good sort in the old days."

Another girl whom he remembered as possessed of sense, sympathy, and humor was Ethel Knapp, who had latterly devoted herself, he had been told, to work in one of the social settlements. Accordingly, he turned the conversation toward philanthropy, and found his friend so responsive that he was confident he had her accounted for at last. But when he left the field of abstract discussion, and asked a question touching specific details, she shook her head.

"I don't know anything about that," she declared. "Ask Ethel Knapp. She lives in one of the settlement-houses, you know, and can probably give you all the statistics you want. I think she's to be at the wedding."

"Foiled again!" thought McEwen, amused, despite the awkwardness of his predicament. All he said, however, was: "Good! I always liked Ethel. Apparently there are others going to the wedding also," he added, as a party of young people boarded the train and were hailed by friends at the other end of the car with joyful cries, above the confusion of which detached phrases concerning bridesmaids, old slippers, and rice were distinctly audible.

Twice again he cautiously felt his way toward girls whom he and Forbes had known, and each time, just as she seemed within grasping distance, his companion swung away from him, and out of the haze surrounding her came that tantalizing, familiar call from the past, whether accent or inflection or smile he could not yet determine. He was desperately casting about for memory of another girl who could possibly have grown into this woman, rejecting this one as too literal and that one as too insipid, when the lady asked, somewhat uneasily:

"Aren't we going a long way? Do you know where we should get off?"

"We go to Sixty-fifth Street, the end of the road," he told her. "It will be a case of 'all out' there, so we can't miss it. Then we take a trolley-car for a few blocks, and walk a block. Don't worry. I'll get you there all right."

"Will you?" She let him see a droll twinkle. "Do you remember the night you undertook to pilot a sleighing party from Yonkers to White Plains?" Then they laughed together.

"Well—we got there, anyway," he reminded her.

"Yes, but think of all the other places you meandered into first," she riposted.

"Oh, not so many!" he defended, thinking fast. Of whom had that party consisted? Jack Alden, who was the host, and probably Tom Deering, as the two were chums. Jack's mother had chaperoned them, he remembered, and the girls—? "Not so many—considering."

"'Considering,' I suppose, that, being a perfectly normal man, you preferred to wander all over the country-side rather than ask directions?" she teased.

"What's the use of depending upon somebody else to tell you what you can find out for yourself?" he demanded, his mind far away on that road from Yonkers to White Plains. Marion, he now remembered, had been of the party, and—Dolly Bain. The third girl eluded him. "We found that road finally, didn't we?"

"Yes, but not by the Socratic method," she laughed. "No; it sounds nice and superior and masculine, your reasoning does, but I'm afraid it's superficial. Either you haven't gone to the bottom of the matter and analyzed it, or you're dodging the issue—and of course you wouldn't do that." She regarded him with mocking gravity.

"Never!"

"'What! Never?'" she quoted.

"By George!" exploded McEwen. "Do you remember that amateur 'Pinafore' we gave? Deering was Rackstraw, and Dolly Bain did the soprano—what's her name? I was Dick Deadeye, and Buttercup—" He stopped short, staring at her.

"Polly Lancaster was Buttercup," she supplied. "Don't you remember Polly?"

"Remember!" he ejaculated. If he had not known that Polly Lancaster was somewhere in the Orient, slaking her thirst for travel as the secretary and companion of a wealthy and peripatetic spinster with literary aspirations, he would have sworn that she was here beside him, going to a wedding in Brooklyn. She had spent only one winter in New York, visiting her friend Frances King—and in a flash accompanying that memory came the conviction that the puzzle was solved. This must be Frances King. But it was Polly's voice and Polly's laughter and Polly's lilting personality that she recalled to him, which was not surprising, inasmuch as Polly had engaged his attention to the exclusion of pretty much everything else except study that winter. He had frequently assured himself that he was not in love with her, but neither had he been in love with any one else since; and he now realized that in all these years he had never thought of Frances King except as a sort of inoffensive and colorless appanage of Polly, Even now, when he met her face to face and found her anything but colorless, it was still Polly whom he remembered. "When I forget Polly Lancaster, I'll be dead," he found himself saying, boyishly. "That was a great winter, wasn't it?"

"It was the jolliest winter I ever spent," she assented, a trifle wistfully.

"And Polly was the life and soul of it. I wonder where she is now?"

"She's been traveling in the Orient for three or four years with Miss—with a literary woman."

"Yes, of course I know that. But I mean to-night. I wonder where she is to-night?"

"I heard Howard say a day or two ago that he had had a letter from her recently, congratulating him, and so on, and saying that they were just leaving for Central India."

"Yes, he told me that in his last letter."

"Oh, did he?" Her eyes were hidden behind drooping lids, and a fleeting smile played around her lips.

"But doesn't she ever say anything about coming home?" he demanded.

"Not a word."

"I suppose she likes it. She always wanted to travel. I wish she would come home. I'd go a long way to see Polly."

"All the way from Mexico here?"

"By George! I just about would!"

"Really? I think that would interest Polly."

"Do you? Why?"

"Oh—just because. Few people are so well remembered through time and absence." She gave him a glimpse of laughing eyes.

"All right; I'll write to her and tell her so. What's her address?" He felt for his note-book.

"I—I don't think I can give you her address—offhand, this way. I'll send it."

"Will you, please? Thanks." Then it occurred to him that, as had always been the case, he was allowing Polly Lancaster to obliterate Frances King in his consciousness, which was hardly civil, under the circumstances. Except for his inability to remember faces, McEwen had an uncommonly retentive memory, and now that it had a clue to work from it quickly reproduced for him the fragmentary gossip about Frances that had reached him from time to time. She had broken her engagement to Jack Alden—whereupon he remembered, clinching his certainty of her identity, that she had been the other girl of that sleighing party—had married an Englishman whom he had never met, probably "Bobbie," and had spent at least the first year or two of her marriage somewhere out of New York. More than this he had not heard, or, if he had, had forgotten.

"You've been away from New York a good deal, too, since the old days," he suggested.

"Oh? Then 'Howard and the rest' did tell you something about me, after all?" Again the quizzical, amused little smile, but this time it did not frighten him.

"Indeed they did," he hastened to claim, "but not as much as they should. And I'd like to know the rest."

"Oh? Well—if you'll tell me what you already know about me I'll try to fill in the gaps."

"I'm afraid I don't know much about you since your marriage," he confessed, eager to show that he really had recognized her. "They wrote me about the wedding, and that you had gone away, and after that I rather lost track of you. I didn't even know you were back."

"But isn't that quite as it should be? Don't all good stories end with a wedding and 'they lived happily ever after'?"

"I hope you've lived happily ever after?" he ventured.

"Oh, quite!" And she looked as if she had.

"But where have you lived?"

"Does that matter? Isn't how one lives the important thing?"

"Now, see here, Frances," he remonstrated, "stop your dodging, and answer questions for a minute."

"With pleasure," said she. "Will you first permit me to remark that it's very interesting to learn that you have at last attached a name to my personality?"

"What on earth do you mean by that?"

"'Fess up, Ned! 'Fess up!" she urged. "First you tried Marion, and then you hinted at Ethel, and then you wriggled carefully toward Grace—"

"Suffering Mike!" he scoffed. "Can't a returned prodigal ask a lady about a few other ladies without being accused by the lady of not knowing any lady from any other lady? You'll be telling somebody, next, that I took you for Polly Lancaster, just because I mentioned her name!"

"No, I won't! I acquit you of that!" she declared, laughing. "So you still say that you knew me from the first?"

"Well, I remembered all about 'Bobbie,' didn't I?" he submitted, whereat a delighted little gurgle of laughter broke from her. "Doesn't that prove it? Is there any 'Bobbie' connected with any of those other girls?"

"Not one!" she assured him. "I have the only Bobbie there is. And you did remember him, didn't you? I'd forgotten that for the moment. I'll forgive you much for that!"

"Well, are you satisfied now?" he demanded.

"Perfectly! Perfectly! Ned, you're adorable! Such a proper, upstanding, man-ny sort of man!"

"Thank you kindly! Now go on. Tell me all about yourself since I lost sight of you."

"Well—you heard about the wedding. For a year or two we traveled. Then Mr. Chichester—"

"'Bobbie'?"

"Who else?" She smiled happily. "He is, as you may know, an Englishman, and he became enamoured of Australia, so he bought a big place there, and settled down to farming on a large scale."

"The deuce! You don't look like a farmer's wife." She wrinkled her nose at him saucily. "Do you like it?"

"Didn't I tell you in the beginning that I preferred to forget my servitude? Why force me to talk about it?"

"Then you don't like it."

"I like—Bobbie."

"Lucky beggar! So you've settled down in Australia! How long have you been here?"

"Only a few days."

"When did you see Polly last? You've no idea how you remind me of her!"

"Polly and I haven't met in—longer than you'd believe. Why do you keep insisting on dates? They're so unpleasant!"

"Well, let's talk about happy things, then. Do you remember—"

They drifted into reminiscences, over which they were still laughing when the train stopped and the guard called, "All out!" On the platform they found several surface cars waiting, and toward one of them McEwen guided his companion.

"Ned, would it be of the slightest use to ask you to inquire about this car and be sure it's the one we want?" she plaintively questioned.

"Not a bit," said he, with amusement. "You haven't any faith at all in me, have you? Do you see the illuminated sign this car flaunts? That same legend is writ out clear and fair in the directions Howard sent me. Moreover, do you behold all these other festive wedding guests piling in ahead of us?"

They entered the car and dropped again into their reminiscent chat. Presently she asked if they were not going too far, and he replied, easily, that it was "all right!" A moment later the car stopped and they left; it, immediately behind the younger party whom they had noticed on the train, and whom they now followed to a large, gaily lighted house in the next street.

As they passed under the carriage awning McEwen felt his companion hesitate, and he asked, looking down at her:

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing—much," she replied, and moved on toward the steps.

They had almost reached the top of the stairs leading to the dressing-rooms when some one above them exclaimed:

"Oh, do hurry! It's almost time for the ceremony now!"

"Hear that?" whispered McEwen. "Can you go down at once?"

"Don't wait for me," she hastily returned. "No—I insist! Somebody stepped on my gown as we came in, and it may have to be fixed, but that's no reason why you should miss the ceremony. Go down immediately—you can find me later. Please!" Nodding brightly, she disappeared in the ladies' dressing-room.

McEwen found no one whom he knew in the men's cloak-room, which was not surprising, but he was a little puzzled when, on descending to the main floor, he met no one who knew him. One or two faces among the men looked vaguely familiar; but as his half-smile won no response he was afraid to trust his uncertain memory, and did not venture to claim acquaintance. He bowed over the hand of the woman receiving, and murmured his name, but others pressed close behind him, and there was time for nothing more. He drifted with the current through the rooms, feeling a little lonely and dreary, watching in each face he met for signs of recognition, and at the same time assuring himself that one never does know any of the people one meets at weddings.

Presently there was a stir and a whisper, the people crowded back toward the walls, the first strains of "Lohengrin" came from the hall, and the ushers marched in, two by two, carrying ribbons. A white-cassocked clergyman appeared near the altar, but among the men about him McEwen looked in vain for a familiar face. A pink mist of bridesmaids floated past him, and the bride, a very young girl, with starry eyes fixed on a youth who presently received her from her fathers arm.

It was all rhythmical and measured, but to McEwen it seemed a riotous jumble, with the unreality and inconsequence of a dream, and, before his dazed wits cleared enough to show him that he had followed the party of young people to the wrong house and was attending the wedding of people he had never seen before, the music had ceased and the priest had begun to speak.

McEwen gave one desperate, hunted glance around him, but he was hemmed in on all sides; every one else was intent on the ceremony, and to force his way out then would be but to increase the offense of which he was guilty. There was nothing for it but to remain until these pretty children were married, and then to get away as quickly as possible. He tried to see Frances Chichester in the crowd near the door, hoping she had not come down in time to make her way into the rooms, but he failed to descry her.

It seemed to him that of all the interminable marriage ceremonies to which he had ever listened this was the longest; but in time it was over, and he struggled against the chattering, congratulatory tide to the hall, whence he despatched a servant to find the host, while he busied himself vainly trying to discover the woman who had come there with him.

Mr. Denslow, whose house it was, arrived duly, and to him McEwen presented his card, his explanation, and his apologies, after which he hurried up-stairs. At the door of the ladies' cloak-room he was met by a smiling maid, who asked:

"Arre you Mr. McEw'n?"

"I am, yes. Is there a lady—"

"No, sor; she's gon'."

"Gone!"

"Yis, sor. But she lift this fer ye, son She said ye'd be racin' up here directly 'twas over,"

McEwen opened the note, merely a half-sheet of paper, folded, and read:

"Dear Ned,—I've gone to Howard's wedding. The man at the door will tell you the way—if you'll ask him."

"How long has she been gone?" he demanded.

"Oh, she niver tuk her t'ings off at all, at all. She said she forgot somethin', an' I was to give you this, an' off she wint, almost runnin'."

"I see. Thank you." He gave the girl a coin, thrust himself into his hat and coat, and fled. At the outer door he paused to ask of a man in livery:

"Can you tell me where Mr. Keeler lives?"

"Yes, sir. Four blocks down to the left and one to the right, sir."

Four blocks to the left and one to the right McEwen went, and there he came to another gaily lighted house with awnings and carriages and sounds of mirth and music. He slipped in quietly, and managed to get up-stairs unobserved by any but the servants, but as soon as he showed himself again in the lower hall a man started out of a group, crying:

"As I live, there's Ned McEwen!"

"Say, you fellows, has anybody seen Frances come in?" demanded the new-comer as soon as he could make himself heard over the babel of welcome.

"Frances?" The other men looked blankly at one another. "Who's Frances?"

"Frances King—Frances Chichester she is now."

"Frances King! Good Lord, man, she's in the Antipodes," somebody told him. "She lives in Australia."

"Yes, I know, but she's here to-night. Yes, she is. She came over on the train with me, but we—we got separated, and if she isn't here, I've got to find her."

Waiting for no further argument, he strode into the drawing-room, two or three of his old comrades wondering at his heels. As they approached the thicker crowd about the newly married pair, McEwen paused.

"There she is!" he said to the men with him. "There's Frances King, talking to that young woman in yellow."

"Frances King, your grandmother! That's Polly Lancaster."

McEwen gave the speaker one stricken look and marched straight to judgment.

"We had all our plans made to go into Central India," she was saying, as he paused behind her, "but then the cable came saying Miss Robertson's play was to be put into rehearsal at once, so we hurried home immediately."

"They're all saying that it's really your play," said the woman in yellow.

"It isn't my play at all," indignantly disclaimed Polly. "I never created anything in my life—except a playwright, and I'm very proud of her. She was trying to write a poor novel, and I made her see that it was a good play. That's all I had to do with it."

"Well, Polly Lancaster?" said McEwen, in her ear.

"Oh," said she, calmly turning toward him, "are you quite sure of me this time? You must have asked somebody."

"I didn't," he said. "You always find out if you wait a little and use your gray matter."

"If you don't die first," added Miss Lancaster. "Was it a pretty wedding?"

"Hang the wedding!"

"Oh no! It's Easter week, Ned, and the proper time for weddings. There's one on nearly every bush to-night."

"Hm! So I've learned."

"I dare say you might locate a few more in this neighborhood—if you'd ask," she soberly reflected, a laughing devil in her eye. "Or you might even discover a belated wedding guest whom you could follow to the door, and so save your pride."

"Only one wedding will ever interest me very much now," he said, "and that will be yours. Polly, who's 'Bobbie'?"

"Oh, have you forgotten again?" she grieved. "You were so sure of him a little while ago."

"'As you are strong'—" he begged, and left the quotation unfinished. "Haven't you reduced me to pulp? Am I not asking? Who is 'Bobbie'?"

"Bobbie is my own private and particular pet-name for Eleanor Robertson, the woman I work for."

"The woman! Thank the Lord!" fervently breathed McEwen; and then, no less fervently, "You imp!