would surely result in permission being refused. The man certainly had
seemed sincere, honest, and perfectly respectable, even if he was not of
the sort one would ask to dinner. She made up her mind to go down-town
to the address given the very first thing to-morrow morning. If anything
should happen to her, she felt that she could always reach her father.
His office was in the next block.

The problem of making the mysterious journey without her mother's
knowledge bothered her not at all. As in the case of most
apartment-house families, she and her mother really saw very little of
each other, especially since she had become a "young lady." Mrs. Strong
went constantly to lectures, to luncheons, to bridge parties, to
matinées with her own particular friends. Jane's engagements were with
another set entirely, school friends most of them, whose parents and
hers hardly knew each other. Both she and her mother habitually
breakfasted in bed, generally at different hours, and seldom lunched
together. At dinner, when Mr. Strong was present, there were no
intimacies between mother and daughter. The only times they really saw
each other for protracted periods were when they happened to go
shopping, or go to the dressmaker's together, and then the subject
always uppermost in the minds of both of them was the all-important and
absorbing topic of clothes. Occasionally, Jane poured at one of her
mother's more formal functions, but for the most part the time of each
was taken up in a mad, senseless hunt for amusement.

Suddenly every thought was driven from Jane's head. Her face went white,
and with difficulty she managed to suppress an alarmed cry.

"What is it, daughter?" asked her mother, noting her perturbation. "Are
you feeling ill?"