For some time after that they wove their way along the sweeping Parkroads without speaking, and when they did begin to talk to one another again, the subject was a different one and Mr. van Soop was more cheerful.  The tea hour was a fairly merry one.  But when he left Sammy, an hour later, at her aunt’s door, he took off his big glove, and grew a little white, and held out his hand to her and said: 

“I won’t see you again, Sammy.  I’ve been thinking it over.  You’re right; it’s all my own fault.  I was very wrong to attempt to persuade you.  But I won’t see you again.  Good-by.”

“Why—!” began Sammy, in astonishment; then she looked down and stammered, “Oh—­,” and finally she put her little hand in his and said simply: 

“Good-by.”

Therefore it was a surprise to Mr. van Soop to find himself entering Mrs. Bond’s library just twenty-four hours later, and grasping the hands of the slender young woman who rose from a chair by the fire.

“Sammy!  You sent for me?”

Sammy looked very young in a little velvet gown with a skirt short enough to show the big bows on her slippers.  Her eyes had a childishly bewildered expression.

“I wanted you,” she said simply.  “I—­I’ve had a letter from Anthony.  It came only an hour ago.  I don’t know whether to be sorry or glad.  Read it!  Read it!”

She sat on a little, low stool by the fire, and Piet flattened the many loose pages of the letter on his knee and read.

Anthony had written on the glazed, ruled single sheets of the “Metropolitan Star Hotel”—­had covered some twenty of them with his loose, dashing hand-writing.

My dear Sammy [wrote Anthony, with admirable directness]:  The boys wanted me to sit in a little game to-night, but the truth is I have been wanting for a long time to speak to you of a certain matter, and to-night seems a good chance to get it off my chest.  A man feels pretty rotten writing a letter like this, but I’ve thought it over for more than a month now, and I feel that no matter how badly you and I both feel, the thing to do is not to let things go too far before we think the thing pretty thoroughly over and make sure that things—­

“What the deuce is he getting at?” said Piet, breaking off suddenly.

“Go on!” said Sammy, bright color in her cheeks.

—­make sure that things are best for the happiness of all parties [resumed Piet].  You see, Sammy [the letter ran on], as far as I am concerned, I never would have said a word, but I have been talking things over with a party whose name I will tell you in a minute, and they feel as if it would be better to write before you come on.  I mean Miss Alma Fay.  You don’t know her.  She is Lucy Barbee’s cousin.  Lucy and I had a great case years ago, and she and Tom asked me up to their house a few weeks ago, and Alma was staying with Lucy.  Well, I took her to the Hallowe’en dance, and