"I enjoyed every moment," she said warmly. "But that wasn't all I
meant when I thanked you."

His eyebrows climbed with surprise.

"What else, Miss Lessing?"

"Your delicacy in letting me know you understood--"

Disengaging her hand, she broke off with a startled movement, and a
low cry of surprise.

A taxicab, swinging into the street from Eighth Avenue, had boiled up
to the curb before the gate, and pausing, discharged a young man in a
hurry; witness the facts that he had the door open when halfway
between the corner and the house, and was on the running-board before
the vehicle was fairly at a halt.

In a stride this one crossed the sidewalk and pulled up, silently,
trying to master the temper which was visibly shaking him. Tall,
well-proportioned, impressively turned out in evening clothes, he
thrust forward a handsome face marred by an evil, twisted mouth, and
peered searchingly at the girl.

Instinctively she shrank back inside the fence, eyeing him with a look
of fascinated dismay.

As instinctively P. Sybarite bristled between the two.