[Illustration: MRS. HARLAN IS A STATELY CHAPERON FOR LOLA.]
As the door of the apartment closed behind him, Lola, without a moment's hesitation crossed the hall to the telephone, and with a glance over her shoulder, to be sure that she was alone, she took down the receiver and called "2164 Rector." After a moment she was answered, and she asked quietly, "Is Mr. Fenway there? Yes, Mr. Richard Fenway."
She stood there smiling to herself until she heard his voice at the other end of the wire. "Hello," she said gayly. "This is Lola. I have changed my mind, Dick, about that ride. I am very much bored to-day, and I have decided to go with you, if you are sure you really want me."
"You know how much I want you," he answered ardently. "Or, if you don't know, I'll tell you. I am all alone here just now, and I'll never have a better chance."
"I wouldn't trouble myself if I were you," continued Lola, "and perhaps you may have fully as good a chance this afternoon; anyway, I am perfectly sure that Central is laughing at you, and I don't at all blame her."
"All right," he answered. "I'll call for you in an hour."
"Oh, no," she retorted. "You know you must not come here. John and father would have a fit. Meet me at Mrs. Harlan's at three, just three o'clock exactly, for I will have to be back by seven."
He started to tell her how delightful he was at the prospect of her company, but as he spoke the door bell rang and she cut him off without warning and turned away as Maria opened the door from her kitchen and started down the hall.
Mrs. Harlan called herself a widow, and if the definition of a widow is "a woman who has lost her husband," she held good claim to that title. Just how this loss occurred was, however, a matter that was shrouded in mystery. No one of her large and rather gay circle of intimate friends either knew or greatly troubled themselves about the matter. She had been known to speak of "Mr. Harlan" and of "my husband," but it was quite impossible to gather from her manner whether she mourned his loss or gloried in her freedom.
There are in New York many circles of what is politely called society, and entrance to these circles is more or less easy of access, depending upon just which one of these charmed rings one wishes to enter. Mrs. Harlan's "set" was one of those to which entrance depended solely upon possession of a decent wardrobe and the desire to have what is rather vaguely called "a good time!" "A good time" is very like "a good dinner," in that one's appreciation of it depends largely upon personal taste; "what is one man's meat may be another's poison," and what to some is "a good time," to others would hardly be dignified by that title.