URING the preceding May the firm which had first employed Dolliver in New York had retired from business, selling its plant and all its interests to James B. Lake & Co., and almost immediately afterward Page had begun to notice slight but fundamental changes of business policy which disturbed him and made him watchful, and he had kept in very close touch, thereafter, with all the transactions in which his department was concerned, without receiving the reassurances he sought. Under these circumstances he felt that he ought not to be away from his desk for any length of time, and he tried to persuade Marjorie to go to the mountains for a few weeks without him, which she as persistently refused to do, declaring that she also was needed in town.
Through the influence of Mrs. Cole and Mrs. Dorrance, who made of the kidnapping episode a stepping-stone to friendship with the Dollivers, she had become a member of The Home League, an association of young women who had undertaken to provide home and education and happiness for a number of otherwise friendless little girls, and into this work she had thrown herself with whole-hearted enthusiasm. In reply to her husband's repeated urging that she go away for a change of air and scene she argued that the car really brought country close to town for them both, and that, aside from the fact that she would be much happier to remain with him and share his life, it would give her real pleasure to use this opportunity to be of service in the work of the League at a time when most of the older members, who had longer sustained its burden, would be away.
In the end her persuasions prevailed, and they agreed to take no other vacation that summer than their week-end trips afforded, and the greater part of these were full of joy. Sometimes the Dollivers were themselves guests in some country-house, but oftener they took with them friends from the city. Once it was the Holdens, with whom they made a merry expedition to the Delaware Water Gap; Mrs. Cheever and one or more of her friends accompanied them in various ramblings through Connecticut and New Jersey, and sundry people not connected with this story were their guests upon many occasions.
There came a time, however, when they wearied, not of well-doing, but of the tension inseparable from constant adjustment to the presence and prejudices of other people, and at the end of a hot, humid week in August they were looking forward with unusual eagerness to the relaxation of an outing when they should have only each other to consider, and might indulge without constraint in those long, confiding silences which are one of the truest tests of real companionship. Page had studied out a particularly inviting route for this journey.
When he reached home that Saturday noon he found the packed suit-cases ready in the hall, and Marjorie dressed and waiting, and they hastened their luncheon that they might sooner be on the road. They were still at the table, however, when the telephone-bell rang, and a moment later the maid entered.
"Mrs. Cheever is down-stairs, Mrs. Dolliver, asking if you can see her."
Page and Marjorie exchanged a quick glance of dismay.
"She says she is in a great hurry and won't detain you a moment."
"Certainly. Ask her to come up," said Marjorie, after the briefest hesitation. To her husband she added, tentatively, "I think I'll put on my bonnet and dust-coat before I see her—or would that be too pointed?"
"Do, by all means," he counseled. "But it won't be of the slightest use, you know. She has chosen the strategic moment."
"Page!" protested his wife, although she laughed a little, too. "How can you, when she is so kind herself! And she's been so nice to me!"
"Granted. She's a very charming woman. She is also—chatty, I think is the word for it. And if 'Ol' Sis Fate' wanted an instrument wherewith to delay our departure, she found it to perfection in Mrs. Cheever."
"Oh!" said Marjorie. "Was that what you meant?"
"What else could I have meant?" he countered, and neither pressed the question further. "Scurry into your things, dear, and for Heaven's sake don't encourage conversation! We can't get out of this furnace too quickly! It's the hottest day yet!"
"It certainly is," said his wife. "And, anyway, we want to 'melt into the landscape, just us two by our lones,' don't we?"
"Let's hope we don't melt into the asphalt before we even smell the landscape," he amended. Mrs. Cheever's usually serene brow was flushed and damp, but her graying hair rippled no less evenly over it, her invariably gentle and winning manner had lost none of its sweetness, and every inflection of her voice was musical.