“Ten minutes of Heaven,” he said, “and then perdetion with that bunch.  Look here,” he said, “I—­I’m awfully interested in what you are telling me.  Let’s cut off up the beech and talk.”

Oh night of Nights!  Oh moon of Moons!

Our talk was strictly business.  He asked me my Plot, and although I had been warned not to do so, even to David Belasco, I gave it to him fully.  And even now, when all is over, I am not sorry.  Let him use it if he will.  I can think of plenty of Plots.

The real tradgedy is that we met father.  He had been ordered to give up smoking, and I considered had done so, mother feeling that I should be encouraged in leaving off cigarettes.  So when I saw the cigar I was sure it was not father.  It proved to be, however, and although he passed with nothing worse than a Glare, I knew I was in more trouble.

At last we reached the Bench again, and I said good night.  Our relations continued business-like to the last.  He said: 

“Good night, little authoress, and let’s have some more talks.”

“I’m afraid I’ve board you,” I said.

“Board me!” he said.  “I haven’t spent such an evening for years!”

The Familey acted perfectly absurd about it.  Seeing that they were going to make a fuss, I refused to say with whom I had been walking.  You’d have thought I had committed a crime.

“It has come to this, Barbara,” mother said, pacing the floor.  “You cannot be trusted out of our sight.  Where do you meet all these men?  If this is how things are now, what will it be when given your Liberty?”

Well, it is to painful to record.  I was told not to leave the place for three days, although allowed the boat-house.  And of course Sis had to chime in that she’d heard a roomer I had run away and got married, and although of course she knew it wasn’t true, owing to no time to do so, still where there was Smoke there was Fire.

But I felt that their confidence in me was going, and that night, after all were in the Land of Dreams, I took that wreched suit of clothes and so on to the boathouse, and hid them in the rafters upstairs.

I come now to the strange Event of the next day, and its sequel.

The Patten place and ours are close together, and no other house near.  Mother had been very cool about the Pattens, owing to nobody knowing them that we knew.  Although I must say they had the most interesting people all the time, and Sis was crazy to call and meet some of them.

Jane came that day to visit her aunt, and she ran down to see me first thing.

“Come and have a ride,” she said.  “I’ve got the Runabout, and after that we’ll bathe and have a real time.”

But I shook my head.

“I’m a prisoner, Jane,” I said.

“Honestly!  Is it the Play, or somthing else?”

“Somthing else, Jane,” I said.  “I can tell you nothing more.  I am simply in trouble, as usual.”