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look of both impatience and anger. Mathilda bit hard on her teeth. He had no business being angry with her, for the love of Mike! She marched down the corridor after the bellboy, holding
    her head haughtily.
     
    They were admitted to a suite. Mathilda stood in the middle of the floor. She indicated the telephone. Francis was muttering to the bellboy about trains, bags. Without a word to her, he crossed to the telephone and asked for Grandy s number. He sat hunched over the phone, his right arm dangling. The call went through without much delay.
     
    "Hello. . . . Jane?"
     
    Mathilda thought, Now, who is Jane? It seemed to her that he'd mentioned a Jane before.
     
    "Francis," said Francis. . . . "Yes, she's here." He looked around at Mathilda coldly, as if to say, "What, are you listening to a private conversation?" He said, as if he were speaking in code, "Is everybody well?" Then he said, with a hint of desperation, "Jane, can you get out? And I mean now?"
     
    "Why, no," said Jane cheerfully from Connecticut, "of course not. He's right here, Mr. Howard. Here he is!"
     
    Grandy's voice took her place. "My dear boy, is she really with you?"
     
    "She's here," he said again, this time with a very odd inflection. He held out the phone to Mathilda. She took it, surprised, touched, excited, and suddenly ready to weep again.
     
    "Oh, Grandy, darling!"
     
    "Mathilda, little duck, are you all right? You're back? You're safe?"
     
    "I'm fine," she quavered. "Oh, Grandy, I want to see you."
     
    "Don't cry," said Grandy. "Don't cry. God bless us every one. What a darling you are to telephone. Are you happy?"
     
    "Oh, Grandy!"
     
    "Tell Francis to bring you home."
     
    "I will, I will. I'm coming just as fast—"
     
    "Strawberries and cream, Tyl," said Grandy. "You hurry, sweetheart."
     
    He hung up and she hung up, sobbing. Strawberries and cream was her special treat. How like him! How dear!
     
    Mr. Howard was standing with his hands in his pockets, staring out the window.
     
    "Grandy says you're to bring me home." She was willing to smile at him now.
     
    He turned around. She thought, with a shock, Somethings hurt him. He's going to cry.  
     
    He said in a low, vibrant voice that startled her with its passionate appeal, "Tyl, don't you remember?"
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
     
    "Remember what?"
     
    He started to pull his hands out of his pockets and then thrust them deeper instead. "Never mind. Foolish question. Obviously, you don't. You can't or you—" He came one step nearer. "Tyl, what happened to you? Were you hurt, darling? You must have been . . .
    ill for part of the time. That's so, isn't it?" Everything in his manner begged her to say yes.
     
    "No," said Mathilda. "That isn't so."
     
    "But it must be so, and you've forgotten that too."
     
    "I haven't forgotten anything!" she cried. "I wish you'd tell me! Who are you and what am I supposed to—"
     
    "I'm your husband," he said sharply, almost angrily.
     
    She backed away a little. In her mind was a vague idea of mistaken identity. "Are you sure you know who I am?" she asked gently. "My name is Mathilda Frazier. I have no husband. I'm not married."
     
    He moved away from her, and with his hands still in his pockets, almost as if he didn't dare to take them out, he sat down on a straight chair, keeping his feet close together. He looked like a man controlling himself at some cost.
     
    "Sorry," he said. "Let's try to straighten this out, shall we?"
     
    He smiled. Mathilda moved to another chair and sat down it Her knees felt a little shaky. It was just as well to sit down.
     
    "Yes, please " she agreed.
     
    They sat looking at each other.
     
    "Do you remember" said Francis finally, in a quiet conversational tone, "when you left Grandy's house, that Sunday afternoon last January, to come to New York?"
     
    Mathilda nodded. She thought, But he knows Grandy. It can't be that he's mistaken me for someone else.  
     
    "You came to this hotel," he was