She practised the detached, casual sort of smile with which she would greet him, and the patient, uninterested silence with which she would listen to his apologies.  Then, realizing that these histrionics would be somewhat marred by a pink negligee, she struggled into her dinner dress.

It was then seven o’clock and time to practise some more vehement reception for the laggard.  It went well—­very well.  Any man would have been annihilated by it, but there was still no man when half-past seven came.

Quite suddenly she fell into a panic.  John was dead!  She had heard and read of the perils of New York.  She had seen a hundred potential accidents on her drive from the ferry.  Trolley, anarchist, elevated railroad, collapsed buildings, frightened horses, runaway automobiles.  Her dear John!  Her mangled husband!  Passing out of the world, even while she, his widowed bride, was dressing in hideous colors, and thinking so falsely of him!

He must be brought to her.  Some one should go and say something to somebody!  Telephone Uncle Richard!  She flew to the directory, which had interested her so little when the polite bellboy of the itching palm had pointed it out to her, and presently she had startled a respectable old stockbroker, so thoroughly and so hastily that he burst into his wife’s presence with the news that John Blake had met with a frightful accident and was being carried to the hotel in the automobile of some rich gentleman from Paterson, New Jersey.

“Hurry down there at once,” commanded Aunt Richard, who was as staid and practical as the wife of a stockbroker ought to be, “and bring the two poor lambs here in your car.  Take the big one.  They’ll want plenty of room to lay him flat.  I’ll have the nurse and the doctor here and a room ready.  Get there if possible before he does, so as not to move him about too often.”

Meanwhile Mrs. John Blake, bride now of nearly eight hours, lay in a stricken heap upon the bed, bedewing with hot tears the shirt she had so dutifully laid ready for Mr. John Blake, and which now he was never more to wear.  And Mr. John Blake, in a hurricane of fear, exasperation and bewilderment, a taxicab, and the swift-falling darkness, fared from hotel to hotel and demanded speech with Mrs. John Blake, a young lady in blue with several handbags and some heavy luggage, who had arrived at some hotel early that afternoon.

His interview with old Nicholson had been short and satisfactory, and at about five-thirty o’clock he was at the Ruissillard inquiring for Mrs. J. Blake’s number and floor with a confidence he was soon to lose.  There was no such person.  No such name.  Then could the clerk tell him whether, and why, she had gone elsewhere.  A slim and tall young lady in blue.

The clerk really couldn’t say.  He had been on duty for only half an hour.  There was no person of the name of Blake in the hotel.  Sometimes guests who failed to find just the accommodation they wanted went over to the Blinheim, just across the avenue.  So the bridegroom set out upon his quest and the clerk, less world-weary than his predecessor, turned back to the telephone-girl.