She hesitated, looking about the room.  “I thought Miss Marshall would be here.  She promised to come down early to write the names on the place-cards.  I thought I heard her voice.”

“You did,” he told her.  “She came down early all right—­but she went back again.”  He laughed, tossed his cigarette-end in the fireplace, and vouchsafing no more explanation, strolled into the billiard-room, and began to knock the balls about, whistling a recent dance tune with great precision and vivacity.  He was anticipating with quickened blood the next meeting with Sylvia.  As he thrust at the gleaming balls, his mouth smiled and his eyes burned.

Mrs. Fiske went upstairs and knocked at Sylvia’s door.  There was a rush of quick footsteps and the girl asked from the other side in a muffled voice, “Who is it?” Mrs. Fiske gave her name, and added, in answer to another question, that she was alone.  The door opened enough for her to enter, and closed quickly after her.  She looked about the disordered room, saw the open trunk, the filmy cascade of yellow chiffon half on and half off the bed, the torn and crumpled spangled scarf, and Sylvia herself, her hastily donned kimono clutched about her with tense hands.

The mistress of the house made no comment on this scene, looking at Sylvia with dull, faded eyes in which there was no life, not even the flicker of an inquiry.  But Sylvia began in a nervous voice to attempt an explanation:  “Oh, Mrs. Fiske—­I—­you’ll have to excuse me—­I must go home at once—­I—­I was just packing.  I thought—­if I hurried I could make the eight-o’clock trolley back to La Chance, and you could send my trunk after me.”  Her every faculty was so concentrated on the single idea of flight—­flight back to the safety of home, that she did not think of the necessity of making an excuse, giving a reason for her action.  It seemed that it must be self-evident to the universe that she could not stay another hour in that house.

Mrs. Fiske nodded.  “Yes, I’ll send your trunk after you,” she said.  She drew a long breath, almost audible, and looked down at the fire on the hearth.  Sylvia came up close to her, looking into her lusterless eyes with deep entreaty.  “And, Mrs. Fiske, would you mind not telling any one I’m going, until I’m gone—­nobody at all!  It’s because—­I—­you could say I didn’t feel well enough to come down to dinner.  I—­if you—­and say I don’t want any dinner up here either!”

“Won’t you be afraid to go down through the grounds to the trolley alone, at night?” asked Mrs. Fiske, without looking at her.

“Everybody will be at dinner, won’t they?” asked Sylvia.

Mrs. Fiske nodded, her eyes on the floor.

Upon which, “Oh no, I won’t be afraid!” cried Sylvia.

Her hostess turned to the door.  “Well, I won’t tell them if you don’t want me to,” she said.  She went out, without another word, closing the door behind her.  Sylvia locked it, and went on with her wild packing.  When she came to the yellow chiffon she rolled it up tightly and jammed it into a corner of her trunk; but the instant afterward she snatched it out and thrust it fiercely into the fire.  The light fabric caught at once, the flames leaped up, filling the room with a roaring heat and flare, which almost as quickly died down to blackened silence.