She didn’t, very much, mind Wallace.  There was no appearance of his being there in the role of guardian because she wasn’t considered safe to leave to herself.  You could always trust Wallace to do a thing like that perfectly.

It was a great piece of luck for him he told her.  He had called up Hickory Hill to congratulate John upon Paula’s enormous success; had learned from Rush of Mary’s visit and that she was even then on the way to Chicago.  He had just dropped round at the station in the hope of being able to pick her up for dinner.  She had some shopping to do he understood and he wouldn’t detain her now.

“Oh, nothing that matters a bit,” said Mary.  “It was an excuse merely, for running away from Hickory Hill.”

There was something to be said for a man like Wallace as a confidant.  He was perfectly safe not to guess anything on his own account.  He seemed touched by her candor and hugged her arm against his side as they walked along, a gesture of endearment such as he hadn’t indulged in for half a dozen years.

“So if you have nothing better to do,” she went on, “we can begin our evening now.  Though I suppose I had better find, first, a place to sleep.”

“Frederica Whitney’s in town for a day or two, just for a flying visit to Martin.  She’d be glad to take you in, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I think not,” said Mary.  “Not if I can get anything with four walls at the Blackstone.”

She thought from his glance at her that he attached some special significance to her unwillingness to go to the Whitney house and hastened to assure him this was not the case.

“Frederica’s a dear.  Only I just happen to feel like not being anybody’s guest to-night.  Oh, and I didn’t mean you by that either.”

“It’s nice to be nobody in that sense,” he said.

His next suggestion was that he get his car, start north up the shore with her, have dinner at one of the taverns along the road and deliver her in good season for a night’s sleep in the cottage at Ravinia.

But this suggestion was declined rather more curtly.

“To-morrow is as soon as I want to go there,” she said.  “Pete’s going over then to get father so I shall go on duty.  But meanwhile I’ll let him enjoy his holiday in peace.”

He made no further demur to telephoning over to the Blackstone.

On his coming back presently with the news that he had a room for her, she said, “Then we’ve nothing on our minds, have we?  Except finding a place for dinner that’s quiet and—­not too romantic.  I am glad you came to meet me.”

She was quite sincere about this.  It would have been ghastly she reflected, to have spent the evening alone in a hotel bedroom with her own thoughts, if those she had entertained on the train coming in were a fair sample.