WHEREIN JOHN AND HERMIONE BECOME ORDINARY MEMBERS OF SOCIETY But the phase passed like a disturbing dream.

Hermione herself laughed the notion to scorn: and a ready opportunity for such effective exorcism of an evil spirit was supplied by Devar's tact.
When the two young men reached the hotel Devar insisted that Curtis should take Hermione for an hour's run in the park.
"Here's the car, and it's a fine morning, and you've got the girl.
What more do you want ?" he cried.

"If Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa show up before your return I'll take care of 'em.

Now, who helps her ladyship to put on her hat and fur coat--you or I ?" That duty, however, was discharged by a smiling and voluble maid named Marcelle Leroux.
So it befell that when Brodie piloted his charges into Central Park through Scholar's Gate, Curtis behaved like a man deeply in love but gravely ill at ease, and Hermione, also in love, but afire with the divine flame of womanly faith, and therefore serenely blind to any possible obstacle which should thrust itself between her and the beloved, saw instantly that something was wrong.

Curtis was just the type of man who would torture himself unnecessarily about a consideration which certainly would not have rendered his inamorata less desirable in the eyes of the average wooer.