hands on the moon face of the clock on the post-office tower were not
pointing to midnight. "Aunt Isabelle has been told," he informed her,
"that you may be a bit late. I wrote it on the supper card, and she
read it--and smiled."

He waited in silence until they had left the avenue, and were on the
driveway back of the Treasury which leads toward the river.

"Porter, this is a wild thing to do."

"I'm in a wild mood--a mood that fits in with the rain and wind, Mary.
I'm in such a mood that if the times were different and the age more
romantic, I would pick you up and put you on my champing steed and
carry you off to my castle."

He laughed, and for the moment she was thrilled by his masterfulness.
"But, alas, my steed is a taxi--the age is prosaic--and you--I'm afraid
of you, Contrary Mary."

They were on the Speedway now, faintly illumined, showing a row of
waving willow trees, spectrally outlined against a background of gray
water.

"I'm afraid of you. I have always been. Even when you were only ten
and I was fifteen. I would shake in my shoes when you looked at me,
Mary; you were the only one then--you are the only one--now."

Her hand lay on the outside of the rug. He put his own over it.

"Ever since you said to-night that you didn't care--there's been