Sylvia faced that instant of red glare with a grimly set jaw and a deeply flushed face.  It did not look at all like her own face.

At a quarter of eight the room was cleared, the trunk strapped and locked, and Sylvia stood dressed for the street, gloved, veiled, and furred.  Under her veil her face showed still very flushed.  She took up her small handbag and her umbrella and opened the door with caution.  A faint clatter of dishes and a hum of laughing talk came up to her ears.  Dinner was evidently in full swing.  She stepped out and went noiselessly down the stairs.  On the bottom step, close to the dining-room door, her umbrella-tip caught in the balustrade and fell with a loud clatter on the bare polished floor of the hall.  Sylvia shrank into herself and waited an instant with suspended breath for the pause in the chatter and laughter which it seemed must follow.  The moment was forever connected in her mind with the smell of delicate food, and fading flowers, and human beings well-washed and perfumed, which floated out to her from the dining-room.  She looked about her at the luxuriously furnished great hall, and hated every inch of it.

If the noise was heard, it evidently passed for something dropped by a servant, for Colonel Fiske, who was telling a humorous story, went on, his recital punctuated by bass and treble anticipatory laughter from his auditors:  “—­and when he called her upon the ’phone the next day to ask her about it, she said she didn’t know he’d been there at all!” A roar of appreciation greeted this recondite climax, under cover of which Sylvia opened the front door and shut it behind her.

The pure coldness of the winter night struck sharply and gratefully on her senses after the warmth and indoor odors of the house.  She sprang forward along the porch and down the steps, distending her nostrils and filling her lungs again and again.  These long deep breaths seemed to her like the renewal of life.

As her foot grated on the gravel of the driveway she heard a stealthy sound back of her, at which her heart leaped up and stood still.  The front door of the house had opened very quietly and shut again.  She looked over her shoulder fearfully, preparing to race down the road, but seeing only Mrs. Fiske’s tall, stooping figure, stopped and turned expectantly.  The older woman came down the steps towards the fugitive, apparently unaware of the biting winter wind on her bared shoulders.  Quite at a loss, and suspiciously on her guard, Sylvia waited for her, searching the blurred pale face with impatient inquiry.

“I—­I thought I’d walk with you a little ways,” said the other, looking down at her guest.

“Oh no! Don’t!” pleaded Sylvia in despair lest some one notice her hostess’ absence.  “You’ll take a dreadful cold!  With no wraps on—­do go back!  I’m not a bit afraid!”