"And--you were there at the time! How dreadful!"

Palla lifted her brown eyes: "I can't talk about it yet," she said so simply that Helen's sixth sense, always alert for information from the busy, invisible antennae, suddenly became convinced that there were no more hidden depths to explore--no motives to suspect, no pretense to expose.

Day after day she chose to seat herself between Palla and Leila Vance; and the girl began to fascinate her.

There was no effort to please on Palla's part, other than that natural one born of sweet-tempered consideration for everybody. There seemed to be no pretence, no pose.

Such untroubled frankness, such unconscious candour were rather difficult to believe in, yet Helen was now convinced that in Palla these phenomena were quite genuine. And she began to understand more clearly, as the week wore on, why her son might have had a hard time of it with Palla Dumont before he returned to more familiar pastures, where camouflage and not candour was the rule in the gay and endless game of blind-man's buff.

"This girl," thought Helen Shotwell to herself, "could easily have taken Jim away from Elorn Sharrow had she chosen to do so. There is no doubt about her charm and her goodness. She certainly is a most unusual girl."

But she did not say this to her only son. She did not even tell him that she had met his girl in black. And Palla had not informed him; she knew that; because the girl herself had told her that she had not seen Jim for "a long, long time." It really was not nearly as long as Palla seemed to consider it.

Helen lunched with Leila Vance one day. The former spoke pleasantly of Palla.

"She's such a darling," said Mrs. Vance, "but the child worries me."

"Why?"

"Well, she's absorbed some ultra-modern Russian notions--socialistic ones--rather shockingly radical. Can you imagine it in a girl who began her novitiate as a Carmelite nun?"

Helen said: "She does not seem to have a tendency toward extremes."

"She has. That awful affair in Russia seemed to shock her from one extreme to another. It's a long way from the cloister to the radical rostrum."

"She spoke of this new Combat Club."

"She organised it," said Leila. "They have a hall where they invite public discussion of social questions three nights a week. The other three nights, a rival and very red club rents the hall and howls for anarchy and blood."

"Isn't it strange?" said Helen. "One can not imagine such a girl devoting herself to radical propaganda."

"Too radical," said Leila. "I'm keeping an uneasy eye on that very wilful and wrong-headed child. Why, my dear, she has the most fastidious, the sweetest, the most chaste mind, and yet the things she calmly discusses would make your hair curl."

"For example?" inquired Helen, astonished.

"Well, for example, they've all concluded that it's time to strip poor old civilisation of her tinsel customs, thread-worn conventions, polite legends, and pleasant falsehoods.

"All laws are silly. Everybody is to do as they please, conforming only to the universal law of Love and Service. Do you see where that would lead some of those pretty hot-heads?"

"Good heavens, I should think so!"

"Of course. But they can't seem to understand that the unscrupulous are certain to exploit them--that the most honest motives--the purest--invite that certain disaster consequent on social irregularities.

"Palla, so far, is all hot-headed enthusiast--hot-hearted theorist.

But I remember that she did take the white veil once. And, as I tell you, I shall try to keep her within range of my uneasy vision.

Because," she added, "she's really a perfect darling."

"She is a most attractive girl," said Helen slowly; "but I think she'd be more attractive still if she were happily married."

"And had children."

Their eyes met, unsmilingly, yet in silent accord.

Their respective cars awaited them at the Ritz and took them in different directions. But all the afternoon Helen Shotwell's mind was occupied with what she now knew of Palla Dumont. And she realised that she wished the girl were back in Russia in spite of all her charm and fascination--yes, on account of it.

Because this lovely, burning asteroid might easily cross the narrow orbit through which her own social world spun peacefully in its orderly progress amid that metropolitan galaxy called Society.

Leila Vance was part of that galaxy. So was her own and only son.

Wandering meteors that burnt so prettily might yet do damage.

For Helen, having known this girl, found it not any too easy to believe that her son could have relinquished her completely in so disturbingly brief a time.

Had she been a young man she knew that she would not have done so.

And, knowing it, she was troubled.

Meanwhile, her only son was troubled, too, as he walked slowly homeward through the winter fog.

And by the time he was climbing his front steps he had concluded to accept this girl as she was--or thought she was--to pull no more long faces or sour faces, but to go back to her, resolutely determined to enjoy her friendship and her friends too; and give his long incarcerated sense of humour an airing, even if he suffered acutely while it revelled.

CHAPTER XIII

Palla's activities seemed to exhilarate her physically and mentally.

Body and brain were now fully occupied; and, if the profit to her soul were dubious, nevertheless the restless spirit of the girl now had an outlet; and at home and in the Combat Club she planned and discussed and investigated the world's woes to her ardent heart's content.

Physically, too, Red Cross and canteen work gave her much needed occupation; and she went everywhere on foot, never using bus, tram or taxicab. The result was, in spite of late and sometimes festive hours, that Palla had become something more than an unusually pretty girl, for there was much of real beauty in her full and charming face and in her enchantingly rounded yet lithe and lissome figure.

About the girl, also, there seemed to be a new freshness like fragrance--a virginal sweetness--that indefinable perfume of something young and vigorous that is already in bud.

That morning she went over to the dingy row of buildings to sign the lease of the hall for three evenings a week, as quarters for Combat Club No. 1.

The stuffy place where the Red Flag Club had met the night before was still reeking with stale smoke and the effluvia of the unwashed; but the windows were open and a negro was sweeping up a litter of defunct cigars.

"Yaas'm, Mr. Puma's office is next do'," he replied to Palla's inquiry; "--Sooperfillum Co'poration. Yaas'm."

Next door had been a stable and auction ring, and odours characteristic still remained, although now the ring had been part.i.tioned, boarded over and floored, and Mr. Hewitt's gla.s.s rods full of blinding light were suspended above the studio ceilings of the Super-Picture Corporation.

Palla entered the brick archway. An office on the right bore the name of Angelo Puma; and that large, richly coloured gentleman hastily got out of his desk chair and flashed a pair of magnificent as well as astonished eyes upon Palla as she opened the door and walked in.

When she had seated herself and stated her business, Puma, with a single gesture, swept from the office several men and a stenographer, and turned to Palla.