She started slightly.  The front door bell was ringing—­a long trill, uncannily loud in the quiet house.  She sat rigid in her chair, waiting.  Billy came in.

“Front door key, please?” he asked urbanely.  She gave him the key.

“Find out who it is before you unlock the door,” she said.  He nodded.  She heard him at the door, then a murmur of voices—­Dale’s voice and another’s—­“Won’t you come in for a few minutes?  Oh, thank you.”  She relaxed.

The door opened; it was Dale.  “How lovely she looks in that evening wrap!” thought Miss Cornelia.  But how tired, too.  I wish I knew what was worrying her.

She smiled.  “Aren’t you back early, Dale?”

Dale threw off her wrap and stood for a moment patting back into its smooth, smart bob, hair ruffled by the wind.

“I was tired,” she said, sinking into a chair.

“Not worried about anything?” Miss Cornelia’s eyes were sharp.

“No,” said Dale without conviction, “but I’ve come here to be company for you and I don’t want to run away all the time.”  She picked up the evening paper and looked at it without apparently seeing it.  Miss Cornelia heard voices in the hall—­a man’s voice—­affable—­ “How have you been, Billy?”—­Billy’s voice in answer, “Very well, sir.”

“Who’s out there, Dale?” she queried.

Dale looked up from the paper.  “Doctor Wells, darling,” she said in a listless voice.  “He brought me over from the club; I asked him to come in for a few minutes.  Billy’s just taking his coat.”  She rose, threw the paper aside, came over and kissed Miss Cornelia suddenly and passionately—­then before Miss Cornelia, a little startled, could return the kiss, went over and sat on the settee by the fireplace near the door of the billiard room.

Miss Cornelia turned to her with a thousand questions on her tongue, but before she could ask any of them, Billy was ushering in Doctor Wells.

As she shook hands with the Doctor, Miss Cornelia observed him with casual interest—­wondering why such a good-looking man, in his early forties, apparently built for success, should be content with the comparative rustication of his local practice.  That shrewd, rather aquiline face, with its keen gray eyes, would have found itself more at home in a wider sphere of action, she thought—­there was just that touch of ruthlessness about it which makes or mars a captain in the world’s affairs.  She found herself murmuring the usual conventionalities of greeting.

“Oh, I’m very well, Doctor, thank you.  Well, many people at the country club?”

“Not very many,” he said, with a shake of his head.  “This failure of the Union Bank has knocked a good many of the club members sky high.”

“Just how did it happen?” Miss Cornelia was making conversation.

“Oh, the usual thing.”  The Doctor took out his cigarette case.  “The cashier, a young chap named Bailey, looted the bank to the tune of over a million.”