She lifted a pretty hand to a pin at her throat, bit her lip--not
with the smile, but mysteriously--and at the last instant before
her shadow touched the stranger, let her eyes gravely meet his.
A moment later, having arrived before the house which was her
destination, she halted at the entrance to a driveway leading
through fine lawns to the intentionally important mansion. It
was a pleasant and impressive place to be seen entering, but
Alice did not enter at once. She paused, examining a tiny bit of
mortar which the masons had forgotten to scrape from a brick in
one of the massive gate-posts. She frowned at this tiny
defacement, and with an air of annoyance scraped it away, using
the ferrule of her cane--an act of fastidious proprietorship. If
any one had looked back over his shoulder he would not have
doubted that she lived there.

Alice did not turn to see whether anything of the sort happened
or not, but she may have surmised that it did. At all events, it
was with an invigorated step that she left the gateway behind her
and went cheerfully up the drive to the house of her friend
Mildred.



CHAPTER IV

Adams had a restless morning, and toward noon he asked Miss Perry
to call his daughter; he wished to say something to her.

"I thought I heard her leaving the house a couple of hours