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boarding school through high school and into this, her second year of college. It never occurred to her to wonder why she, an only child, was sent away to school. She was only a little happier there where she had practically no time to herself than at home where she was left very much alone. Her mother was away a good part of most days. And Annie’s care, as far back as Martha could remember—beyond food, her insides, a clean head and an occasional Irish fairy story—consisted largely of saying “Don’t” to things she was unlikely to have done more than once in any case: Don’t go too near the lily pond; don’t climb the rose trellis; don’t eat the snow berries. Her mother maintained music rooms in the International Building on Lake Front Avenue where she taught piano and voice. Martha very nearly stopped there that Saturday afternoon on her way home. She did not do it, however, knowing her mother did not approve such surprises; she liked to have everything prescheduled. Martha dearly loved houses where people just dropped in.
    Her father was not to be interrupted either, she discovered when she got home. He was in his study, “talking very serious with a young man,” Annie said. “Just change your dress and come down to the kitchen. I have a surprise for you.”
    Martha no longer needed to change her dress whenever she came into the house, but it was one of the things Annie simply could not understand. Whenever Martha tried to explain it, after the whole rigmarole Annie would say, “All right. Just this once, put on an apron and come down the way you are.” Martha took her overnight case upstairs, trying not to feel sorry for herself. She had begun to feel sorry for Sister Mathilde, although she did not think she could ever again walk into her art class. She took from her suitcase a small black notebook in which she was in the habit of writing down impressive passages from her reading. She turned to a line from Galsworthy which she had recently entered: “Peace? There is no peace. There is life and there is death.” How true! How cruelly true. And what was to be said to Genevieve Revere about her horrid water color?
    She was distracted from her melancholy by the wafting up from the kitchen of the smell of fresh spice cake. Before she had finished washing her hands the aroma was fairly irresistible. She went down the stairs at a giddy clip, and very nearly collided with a man coming out of her father’s study.
    “I’m awfully sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to run you down. But there’s kind of a blind spot here when you come from upstairs.”
    He looked at her, surprised but unperturbed. His smile was more courtly than warm, she thought, and that she admired. “It is a busy intersection,” he said gravely. With a nod he proceeded toward the front door. He was tall and seemed to her rough-hewn, his features being so pronounced—almost squared off, like a modern painting. He moved at an unhurried pace, but he was going away nonetheless.
    “I’m Martha Fitzgerald,” she said proudly and loudly, having to say it to his back.
    He turned, his hand on the knob of the front door. “I’m Marcus Hogan, and if I weren’t already ten minutes late to an appointment, I’d not be guilty of running away from the scene of an accident like this.”
    Martha gave him a wide and sudden smile, so ingratiated was she with his way of saying things, and he lingered a second or two just looking at her. “I wish it weren’t such an important appointment,” he said. Then with a little bow, he turned and was gone. There was in his manner something almost supercilious, a quality she by no means despised, being taken at the moment with Pride and Prejudice.
    From behind the lace curtains she watched him down the steps and into his car, which was old and noisy when first he started it. Before he drove off he tipped his hat in the direction of the house. Martha drew back quickly, the color naming into her cheeks.
    She