Mrs. Parry, rising that morning to control the grand
occasion, and excluding from her mind as often as pos-
sible the image of a photograph in the papers of her-
self and Peter Stanhope side by side, "author and
producer," found a note from Lawrence Wentworth
waiting on her breakfast table. It was short and frigid.
It said only that he had caught a feverish chill and
would not be at the performance. Even so, it had given
him some trouble to write, for it had demanded con-
tact, and only a desire that he should not be, by some
maddening necessary inquiry, disturbed in his solitude,
had compelled him to write it. He had sent it round
very early, and then had returned to sit in his study,
with curtains drawn, to help him in his sickness.

"Very odd weather to catch a feverish chill," Mrs.
Parry thought, looking through her window at the
dancing sunlight. "And he might have returned his
ticket, and he might have sent good wishes." Good
wishes were precisely what Wentworth was incapable of
sending anywhere, but Mrs. Parry could not know that.
It was difficult to imagine what either Zion or Gomor-
rah would make of Mrs. Parry, but of the two it was
certainly Zion which would have to deal with her, since
mere efficiency, like mere being, is in itself admirable,
and must be colored with definite evil before it can be

-196-