He asked it again when they were presently seated on a homeward bound car.  “What I want to know is, what made you wander from your own fireside?”

Mary felt her cheeks burn.  She was prepared to make a full confession to the girls, but not for worlds would she make it to him.  Quickly turning her back on him as if to look at something that had attracted her attention in the street, she groped frantically around in her mind for an answer.  He leaned forward, peering around till he could see her face, and repeated the question.

“Oh,” she answered indifferently, bending slightly to examine the toe of her shoe with a little frown, as if it interested her more than the question.  “I just went out into the wide world to seek my fortune.  You know I never had a chance before.”

“And did you find it?”

She laughed.  “Well, some people might not think so, but I’m satisfied.”

“Did you have any adventures?” he persisted.

“Yes, heaps and heaps, but I’m saving them to go in my memoirs, so you needn’t ask what they were.”

“Lost on Broadway, or Arizona Mary’s Mystery!” exclaimed Phil.  “I shall never rest easy until I unearth it.”

“Then you’ll have a long spell of uneasiness,” was the grim reply.  “Horses couldn’t drag it from me.”

He had begun his questioning merely in a spirit of banter, but as she stubbornly persisted in her refusals, he began to think that she really had had some ridiculous adventure, and was determined to find out what it was.  So he set traps for her, and cross-questioned her, secretly amused at the quick-witted way in which she continually baffled him.

“I see that you are sadly changed,” he said finally, with a shake of the head.  “The little Mary I used to know would have given the whole thing away by this time—­would have blurted out the truth before she knew what she was doing.  She was too honest and straight-forward to evade a question.  But you’ve grown as worldly-wise as an old trout—­won’t bite at any kind of bait.  Never mind, though, I’ll get you yet.”

Thus put on her guard, Mary refused to tell even the girls what had possessed her to take secret leave that morning, but as she passed Joyce in the hall she whispered imploringly, “Please don’t ask me to tell now.  It isn’t much, but I don’t want to tell while he’s in the house.  He has been teasing me so.”

“I’d stay to lunch if anybody would ask me three times,” announced Phil, presently.  “I have to have my welcome assured.”

“I’ll ask you if Mary is willing,” said Joyce, who had gone back to her work.  “She has promised to be chef to-day.”

Mary regarded him doubtfully, as if weighing the matter, then said, “I’m willing if he’ll promise not to mention what happened this morning another single time.  And he can order any two dishes in the cook-book that can be prepared in an hour, and I’ll make them; that is, of course, if the materials are in the house.”