She had provided herself with a pair of black gloves, but at the last moment the left-hand glove could not be found.  When all her frantic overturnings failed to bring it to light, she gave up the search, not wanting to lose any more valuable time.  The little flat feather muff which went with the boa would hide the fact that she had only one glove.  Thrusting her bare hand into it, she stopped for only one thing more, a black bordered card, which bore the name in old English type, Mrs. Robertson Redmond.  It was one which had been sent up to her by one of her mother’s friends, who called at the Claiborne’s, and was partly responsible for this disguise.  It had suggested the black veil with the crape border.

Dodging past several open doors she reached the south corridor in safety and raising the window that opened on a back court, she stepped out on the fire escape.  Cornie’s long skirt nearly tripped her, and it was no easy matter to cling to the rounds of the iron ladder, with a muff in one hand and her skirts constantly wrapping around her.  Luckily she had only one flight to descend.  Stopping a moment to smooth her ruffled plumage and get her breath, she walked around to the front of the house, climbed the steps, and boldly lifted the great knocker.

It was a dark, cold night, and the sudden appearance of a lady on the doorstep, so far from the station, astonished the footman who opened the door.  He had heard no sound of wheels, and he peered out past her, expecting to see some manly escort emerge from the night.  None came.  But she was unmistakably a lady, and her mourning costume seemed to furnish the necessary credentials.  When she handed him a black-bordered card and asked for Miss Mary Ware of Arizona, with an air of calm assurance and with the broadest of English accents, he bowed obsequiously and ushered her into the drawing room.

In the far end of it Herr Vogelbaum was talking lustily in German to two young men, evidently fellow musicians.  Otherwise it was deserted, except for A.O., and a bashful, overgrown boy of seventeen, who sat opposite her on a chair far too low for him.  It gave him the effect of sprawling, and he was constantly drawing in his long legs and thrusting them out again.  The teacher who was to be drawing room chaperon for the evening had not yet come down.

The lady in black glided into the room with the air of being so absorbed in her own affairs that she looked upon the other occupants as she did the furniture.  Without even a direct glance at the young people in the corner she swept up to a chair within a few feet of them and sat down to wait.  Jimmy, in the midst of some tale about a prank that the High School Invincibles had played on a rival base-ball team, faltered, grew confused and finished haltingly.  For all her spectacles and crape the golden haired stranger was fascinatingly young and pretty.