Yet everywhere was lovely confusion--delicate things were thrown
half-way into open trunks, filmy fabrics floated from unexpected
places, small slippers were held by receptacles never designed for
shoes, radiant hats bloomed in boxes.

On a chair lay a bridesmaid's bunch of roses. This bunch Mary Ballard
picked up as she passed, and it was over the top of it that she asked,
with some diffidence, "Do you think you'd care to take the rooms?"

Did he? Did the Peri outside the gates yearn to enter? Here within
his reach was that from which he had been cut off for five years. Five
years in boarding-houses and cheap hotels, and now the chance to live
again--as he had once lived!

"I do want them--awfully--but the price named in your letter seems
ridiculously small----"

"But you see it is all I shall need," she was as blissfully
unbusinesslike as he. "I want to add a certain amount to my income, so
I ask you to pay that," she smiled, and with increasing diffidence
demanded, "Could you make up your mind--now? It is important that I
should know--to-night."

She saw the question in his eyes and answered it, "You see--my family
have no idea that I am doing this. If they knew, they wouldn't want me
to rent the rooms--but the house is mine---I shall do as I please."

She seemed to fling it at him, defiantly.

"And you want me to be accessory to your--crime."