A motor horn sounded outside.  Rodney had come for her.  He came in, in his big coat, and shook hands with Sally and Lydia.  His eyes were on Martie as she slipped a black cloak over her floating draperies, and the fresh white of throat and arms.

“What have you done to make yourself so pretty?” he asked gallantly, when they were in the car.

“Am I pretty?” she asked directly, in a pleased tone.

It was a tone she could not use with Rodney.  She was astonished to have him fling his arm lightly about her shoulders for a minute.

“Just as pretty as when you broke my heart eight years ago!” he said cheerfully.  Martie was too much surprised to answer, and as he busied himself with the turns of the road, she presently began to speak of other things.  But when they had driven into the driveway of the new Parker house, and had stopped at the side door, he jumped from the car, and came around it to help her out.

She felt him lightly detain her, and looked up at him curiously.

“Well, what’s the matter—­afraid of me?”

“No-o.”  Martie was a little confused.  “But—­but hadn’t I better go in?”

“Well—­what do I get out of it?” he asked, in the old teasing voice of the boy who had liked to play “Post-office” and “Clap-in-and-clap-out” years ago.

But they were not children now, and there was reproach in the glance Martie gave him as she ran up the steps.

Rose, in blue satin, fluttered to meet her and she was conveyed upstairs on a sort of cloud of laughter and affection.  Everywhere were lights and pretty rooms; wraps were flung darkly across the Madeira embroidery and filet-work of Rose’s bed.

“Other people, Rose?”

“Just the Ellises, Martie, and the Youngers—­you don’t know them.  And a city man to balance Florence, and Cliff.”  Rose, hovering over the dressing-table exclaimed ecstatically over Martie’s hair.  “You look lovely—­you want your scarf?  No, you won’t need it—­but it’s so pretty—­”

She laid an arm about Martie’s waist as they went downstairs.

“You’ve heard that we’ve had trouble with the girls?” Rose said, in a confidential whisper.  “Yes.  Ida and May—­after all Rodney had done for them, too!  He did everything.  It was over a piece of property that their grandfather had left their father—­I don’t know just what the trouble was!  But you won’t mention them to Rod—?”

Everything was perfection, of course.  There were cocktails, served in the big drawing room, with its one big rug, and its Potocka and le Brun looking down from the tinted walls.  Martie sat between Rodney and the strange man, who was unresponsive.

Rodney, warmed by a delicious dinner, became emotional.

“That was a precious friendship of ours, to me, Martie,” he said.  “Just our boy-and-girl days, but they were happy days!  I remember waking up in the mornings and saying to myself, ’I’ll see Martie to-day!’ Yes,” said Rodney, putting down his glass, his eyes watering, “that’s a precious memory to me—­very.”