“Call him up,” said Jane, “and tell him to keep away.”

But this I dare not do.

“Who knows, Jane,” I observed, in a forlorn manner, “but that the telephone is watched?  They must suspect.  But how?  How?”

Jane was indeed a fidus A CHATES.  She went out to the drug store and telephoned to Tom, being careful not to mention my name, because of the clerk at the soda fountain listening, saying merely to keep away from a Certain Person for a time as it was dangerous.  She then merely mentioned the word “revolver” as meaning nothing to the clerk but a great deal to Tom.  She also aranged a meeting in the Park at 3 P. M. as being the hour when father signed his mail before going to his Club to play bridge untill dinner.

Our meeting was a sad one.  How could it be otherwise, when to loving Hearts are forbiden to beat as one, or even to meet?  And when one or the other is constantly saying: 

“Turn your back.  There is some one I know coming!”

Or: 

“There’s the Peters’s nurse, and she’s the worst talker you ever heard of.”  And so on.

At one time Tom would have been allowed to take out their Roadster, but unfortunately he had been forbiden to do so, owing to having upset it while taking his Grandmother Gray for an airing, and was not to drive again until she could walk without cruches.

“Won’t your people let you take out a car?” he asked.  “Every girl ought to know how to drive, in case of war or the chauffeur leaving——­”

“——­or taking a Grandmother for an airing!” I said coldly.  Because I did not care to be criticized when engaged only a few hours.

However, after we had parted with mutual Protestations, I felt the desire that every engaged person of the Femanine Sex always feels, to apear perfect to the one she is engaged to.  I therfore considered whether to ask Smith to teach me to drive one of our cars or to purchace one of my own, and be responsable to no one if muddy, or arrested for speeding, or any other Vicissatude.

On the next day Jane and I looked at automobiles, starting with ones I could not aford so as to clear the air, as Jane said.  At last we found one I could aford.  Also its lining matched my costume, being tan.  It was but six hundred dollars, having been more but turned in by a lady after three hundred miles because she was of the kind that never learns to drive but loses its head during an emergency and forgets how to stop, even though a Human Life be in its path.

The Salesman said that he could tell at a glanse that I was not that sort, being calm in danger and not likly to chase a chicken into a fense corner and murder it, as some do when excited.

Jane and I consulted, for buying a car is a serious matter and not to be done lightly, especialy when one has not consulted one’s Familey and knows not where to keep the car when purchaced.  It is not like a dog, which I have once or twice kept in a clandestine manner in the Garage, because of flees in the house.