Luck favored her astonishingly in her efforts to escape the rigors of school discipline.  Just when she was forbidden to leave Miss Waring’s to spend nights and Sundays at Mrs. Owen’s, her mother came to town and opportunely (for Marian) fell ill, at the Whitcomb.  Mrs. Bassett was cruising languidly toward the sombre coasts of Neurasthenia, and though she was under the supervision of a trained nurse, Marian made her mother’s illness an excuse for moving down to the hotel to take care of her.  Her father, in and out of the city caring for his multiplying interests, objected mildly but acquiesced, which was simpler and more comfortable than opposing her.

Having escaped from school and established herself at the Whitcomb, Marian summoned Harwood to the hotel on the flimsiest pretexts, many of them most ingeniously plausible.  For example, she avowed her intention of carrying on her studies at the hotel during her enforced retirement from Miss Waring’s, and her father’s secretary, being a college man, could assist her with her Latin as well as not.  Dan set tasks for her for a week, until she wearied of the pretense.  She insisted that it was too stupid for her to go unattended to the hotel restaurant for her meals, and it was no fun eating in her mother’s room with that lady in bed and the trained nurse at hand; so Harwood must join her for luncheon and dinner at the Whitcomb.  Mrs. Owen was out of town, Bassett was most uncertain in his goings and comings, and Mrs. Bassett was beyond Harwood’s reach, so he obeyed, not without chafing of spirit, these commands of Marian.  He was conscious that people pointed her out in the restaurant as Morton Bassett’s daughter, and he did not like the responsibility of this unauthorized chaperonage.

Mrs. Bassett was going to a sanatorium as soon as she was able to move; but for three weeks Marian was on Harwood’s hands.  Her bland airs of proprietorship amused him when they did not annoy him, and when he ventured to remonstrate with her for her unnecessary abandonment of school to take care of her mother, her pretty moue had mitigated his impatience.  She knew the value of her prettiness.  Dan was a young man and Marian was not without romantic longings.  Just what passed between her and her mother Harwood could not know, but the hand that ruled indulgently in health had certainly not gained strength in sickness.

This was in January when the theatres were offering an unusual variety of attractions.  Dan had been obliged to refuse—­more harshly than was agreeable—­to take Marian to see a French farce that had been widely advertised by its indecency.  Her cool announcement that she had read it in French did not seem to Harwood to make an educational matter of it; but he was obliged finally to compromise with her on another play.  Her mother was quite comfortable, she averred; there was no reason why she should not go to the theatre, and she forced the issue by getting the tickets herself.