Women who had snubbed her openly now fought for the honor of being snubbed by her. There was not enough time in the calendar for her to make the rounds of country houses to which she was invited.

The sudden onrush of publicity was bewildering. Columns were written, columns of inanities, columns of untruths, columns of the most childishly absurd speculations, which a kindergarten knowledge of English tradition would have knocked to pieces.

The prince continued on his journey, and perhaps he forgot all about the beauty who had been late for dinner. The girl could not understand why the newspapers kept up the talk, nor where they got her photographs that were endlessly reproduced. Her stepmother suggested employing detectives, then decided not to, for fear of inciting further publicity. Hardcastle was her stepmother's im

VOL. CXLIV.-No. 863.-79

mediate name, but she had petitioned Congress to have it changed back to Brandon. "Petite maman" was what she insisted on Phyllis calling her. She was rather addicted to matrimony in the settlement of her affairs. It wasn't really safe for any man to talk to her about a mortgage, a motor car, or even the weather; the discussion was so apt to take on a permanent character. A genuine blond, her hair was minted from the scalp an indubitable gold, but it was too good to be true; it would have ruined any woman's reputation. The Brandons, inherent conservatives, could not receive hair like that at their Friday afternoons. It was easier to drop Phyllis, who, as "poor dear James's daughter," didn't count particularly.

By the terms of her father's will, the girl couldn't claim her share of the scant inheritance till she was twenty-five, and miracles of frugality went toward keep

Meantime, Lysander Salazar was in the habit of proposing Sunday afternoons, and when Monday dawned, blue, disheartening, with bills and tradesmen to be placated, Phyllis always wondered why she hadn't taken him. He was still fervid, camellia-like, and, in a miniature way, handsome. But the more enamored he became the more Phyllis thought of a tenor pouring out his soul under a calcium moon. Then suddenly he was transferred to London; perhaps his chief thought his devotion to Miss Brandon was making him a bit absurd. She tried honestly to give him some encouragement before he sailed-living on nothing a year was getting to be intolerable-but the image of the moon and the tenor persisted.

Curiously enough, though months had passed since the prince's visit, "the only girl" legend, and the havoc it might possibly play with Church and State, continued.

Phyllis went to her stepmother's sitting room one morning-and the cat of mystery was out of the bag. Sprawled upward on the desk were two childhood photographs of herself, and at the bottom of each, in Mrs. Brandon's angular handwriting, a caption concerning the prince and "the only girl." A newspaper was returning them with the comment that, "Such a long time has elapsed since His Highness's visit to these shores, we feel the public is entitled to fresher topics."

Rage and shame consumed Phyllis; something violent would break loose if she encountered Petite maman just then. She rushed out, walked the streets for hours, rested in a public park, and walked again; fifty cents exactly represented her entire capital; there was nothing to do but go home and again take up life with Petite maman.

Drooping, overblown, not unlike an American Beauty rose fallen from its high caste in the florist's window to the humbler environment of a street vender's basket, Mrs. Brandon opened the

thing, Phil darling. It broke my heart to see nobodies always getting their daughters' names in the paper--and Jim Brandon's girl nowhere!"

Phyllis's silence was more accusing than words.

"I did it, dearie, because we hadn't the money to draw attention to you in the usual way. Girls fail, the same as business these days, if they're not advertised."

Still no answer. Petite maman took a fresh turn.

"If you could have only taken a fancy to Lysander; but you're so hard to please! Anyone might have thought he was a government clerk trying not to become an anarchist on twelve hundred a year, instead of having more than he can spend. And playing the piano, too, with such a lovely touch. Millionaires are not often so accomplished—” Still no answer.

"You must admit, dearie, my making the most of those three or four steps you took with the prince has saved you from being snowed under the way your father's family would like to have you. It's made you the most talked-of girl in the United States."

Utter hopelessness spread over her stepdaughter's face. "Can't you realize what I feel, going there because Greataunt Anne insisted-unwelcome, late, tricked out in a couple of scarfs, like a snake charmer? Then to have the prince's kindness betrayed by misrepresentation—”

"You're exactly like your father-too sensitive to get anywhere."

"My only ambition is to get out of the papers and get a job."

"A job with your face! You'd wreck it in a week."

Which would be wrecked, the face or the occupation, was not made clear.

For the next few weeks Phyllis, like countless victims of the finishing-school system, wondered if she had a single money-getting asset among her slim assortment of parlor tricks. She could

speak French, if people did not talk too fast; she remembered vaguely that all Gaul had been divided into three parts, and that Chaucer was reputed to be the father of English literature.

She dreamed of opening a tea shop, a hat shop, a book shop, but-such things require capital. Petite maman then developed a new plan.

Further retrenchment was necessary. Stocks had dropped, servants' wages were ruinous. In Washington, when one was hard up, the usual procedure was to rent one's house furnished to a new Congressman. This was comparatively easy,

if you did over with English chintz and picked up a few bits of mahogany at Sloan's. New Congressmen's wives "fell hard" for such things; they were so tired of mission furniture and Bagdad portières when they got to Washington, finally.

The twins who were neither Hardcastles nor Brandons, but Smithsfruits of Petite maman's first matrimonial venture could then be sent to a cheap boarding school in Quebec, where the French was very decent. And Phyllis and her mother would be free to retrench in Palermo. Why Palermo, Phyllis didn't know.

They intended to sail the latter part of October, if the divinations of the soothsayers were favorable. Mrs. Brandon never made a decision without having recourse to a crystal gazer or an astrologer. "A marvel," newly discovered, now urged her client to change the color of her hair, which was out of harmony with her horoscope—“and didn't look natural, anyway."

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The astrologer advised a warm henna," as to hair, and said Petite maman's vibrations would be concordant if she confined her colors to black and white. With misgivings Phyllis found herself beside an unfamiliar figure on the deck of an outgoing steamer-a challenging Bakst study in henna, ivory, and black.

It developed almost immediately that Mrs. Brandon had changed her plans. "Palermo has nothing but a cathedral and climate. Foolish to waste our clothes on it, Phil darling; they represent capital; we mortgaged the home to get them." She had the manner of one fighting with her back to the wall.

"What do you propose?" Her stepdaughter had the weariness of despair.

"I mean to stop over in London and let Salazar take us about. I'm sick to death of filling food, cheap theater seats, having to consider every taxi before I dare take it. Perhaps you may run across the prince. I'm going to try like mad to have us presented at court."

Presented at court! That fantasy had inspired mortgaging the house. They would be lucky if they were not requested to take the next steamer home. Discussion with Mrs. Brandon was impossible; it degenerated into wrangling. Phyllis spun on her heel and began to pace the deck. She walked till she was ready to drop with fatigue, then snuggled luxuriously in her steamer rugs. The everlasting surge of the waves lulled her, the wet salt breeze filled her hair with delicious moisture; on her lips the taste was bitter and cleansing. She sank at last into a deep lethargic gulf in which all the cravings of youth had vanished.

She was even indifferent to that succession of fat angels occupying, in turn, a high chair in a sunny room in her own particular castle in Spain.

From time to time a haunting realization of her plight would snatch her back from the threshold of slumber, but the prospect was reassuringly the same-a pale crescent moon looked down on a mother-of-pearl sea over which a fog trailed ghostly vestures. Through a porthole a light gleamed, another, another; the great ship became a constellation.

Sleep with troubled dreams came. A brute, yelling she must walk the plank, caught her by the caught her by the arm; she sprang aside to escape him; the deck chair collapsed, the tucked-up bundle of rugs rolled toward the rail.

The man who did not dine till eight regarded with interest the depraved conduct of apparently inanimate things. To pitch the rugs back where they belonged was the automatic prompting of an orderly mind.

He stooped-he laid hold of-he let fall! His mental phonograph recorded: "More to this than bally bundle of rugs. Woman inside. Regular Cleopatra 'stunt'!" Inquiries followed the steadying of Phyllis on her feet. No, she wasn't hurt. Again his mental phonograph asked, "Why in thunder does she hold me as if she were going down for the third time?" A searchlight flashed from the bridge, a puff of wind whipped aside an enveloping veil, nebulous, suggestive of trailing fog, crescent moon, motherof-pearl sea. She stood revealed. Why had she dropped his arm so soon?

Aloud he said: "Nasty cropper that. Boat lurched?"

Still a bit dazed, she answered: "No. I dreamed I had to walk the plank."

People were coming out from dinner in violent extremes of costume-in sweaters, with jerked-down tams to conceal disordered hair, or preening along in elaborate evening clothes topped by furred wraps.

An austere silhouette was all the un

certain light yielded of the stranger; he appeared a bit formidable.

"Shall I talk to him?" she deliberated. "Would he make me forget my troubles for a while?" Something about him seemed oddly familiar. "Aren't you going to dinner?' she asked. "Are you?"

"I had some bouillon out here. Noththanks."

ing more,

"Dinners are fairly regular with me," he deliberated. "I don't pick up a rug every day-and find it-not a rug."

Her identity hung tantalizingly beyond the rim of his consciousness. Where had he seen this girl? In the States they called that way of speaking "Southern." Again a searchlight flashed from the bridge. Recognition was mutual, instantaneous, even a bit tense.

"She ought to be made to walk the plank-the little cheat!" his mental phonograph recorded. And hers, "The English officer who pulled wires at the prince's dinner!" He reflected: "She's

not going to make a fool of me with that rug business. Old stuff. Cleopatra tripped Julius with that." Aloud he asked, "Did an airship drop you from Mars, or have you been avoiding the herd?"

Her quick perceptions sensed the change, the inimical something that had come with recognition.

"Guess," she parried. "Riddles are one of the few things the war hasn't disturbed."

With the instinct of a hunting man he decided to try her at "a stone fence,"