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already beginning to move slowly. But when he turned about, there was Mary Elizabeth beside him, walking composedly along the platform, her cheeks very rosy, and she did not look angry. In fact, her eyes were still starry, and there was a twinkle of a smile about her lips. Her chin was tilted a bit as if she were proud of him.
    Then did John Saxon’s heart leap with joy.
    “That was final, dear!” he shouted down to her through the noise of the train.
    “Yes?” said Mary Elizabeth. “You certainly did it thoroughly.”
    And then the train got alive to its duty and swept them apart like a breath that is gone, and Mary Elizabeth stood alone on the long, empty platform gazing after a fast-disappearing red light at the end of the train.
    Gone!
    She put up the back of her hand to her hot cheek, touched her lips softly, sacredly, and smiled.
    Had it been real?
    Finally she turned, got into her car, and drove away.
    When she reached her hotel the doorman summoned a man to take her car to the garage. Mary Elizabeth went up to her room, turned on all her lights, and went and faced her mirror to look straight into her own eyes and find out what she thought of herself.

Chapter 3
    M
eantime, out in the silence of a smooth dark road in their own luxurious car, the bride and groom drove happily through the night to a destination that Jeffrey Wainwright had picked out, and not even Camilla knew.
    They had completed their exciting trip in the caterer’s car and had made a quiet transfer to their own in the haven of the backyard of an old farmhouse where a friend of Camilla’s mother lived. Not even the farmer and his wife were there to interfere, though they did stand behind a sheltering curtain and watch the car move smoothly out of their drive and down the road, and they felt the thrill of their own first journey as man and wife.
    There had not been opportunity to talk in the caterer’s car, nor safety, lest they be followed, and by the time they were launched on their own way there were so many other thrilling things to say that they forgot that last encounter with John Saxon. But an hour later as they swept over a hill and looked down across a valley to where the lights of another small city blazed, the memory recurred to them.
    “What did he mean, Jeff, about Helen Foster? Did no one tell him she wasn’t there?”
    “Evidently not, from what he said. You see, we didn’t really have much time to talk. He probably confused Mary Beth with her. But what’s the difference?”
    “A great deal, I should say,” said the bride in a wise tone. “If you’d noticed his eyes when he looked at her!”
    “Now, Camilla, don’t go to being a matchmaker!” laughed Jeff. “Because if you do you’ll be disappointed. Those two will never get together. They’re as wide apart as the poles.”
    “Any wider apart than we were, Jeff?”
    She laid a caressing hand on her new husband’s arm, and he looked down on her tenderly and then leaned over and gave her another kiss.
    “I insist,” he said, and kissed her again, “that we were never far apart. If we were, I never could have made the grade.”
    Then they floated off to reminiscing again but eventually got back to John Saxon.
    “What did he mean by saying they had introduced themselves? Can it be that nobody looked after that little matter?”
    “It must have been. But it strikes me that John is able to get around and look after himself pretty well. It looked that way to me. They seemed to be having an awfully good time together.”
    “Well, they would,” said Jeff thoughtfully. “They’re both unusual. But I’d hate like sixty to have John get interested in Mary Beth. She’s always been my favorite cousin, but I’ll have to own she’s a bit of a flirt. I don’t know how many men she’s kept on the string for a number of years now, and they’re all deeply devoted, but Mary Beth goes smiling on her way and takes none of them. I wouldn’t like John to get himself a