Monteith had been in that morning, but only for a very few minutes. He had left over two hours ago. Why, yes, she did happen to know his immediate destination. He was taking some medicine to a very sick patient in the mountains for Dr. Sargent. He was on his way somewhere else but she didn’t know where. Yes, she could give the name of the patient, but Mr. Monteith would hardly be there yet. It was a three-hour drive.

Demeter Cass thanked the informer graciously, representing her necessity for contacting Mr. Monteith as most important, and hung up the receiver with a glitter of triumph in her eye.

So, Alan Monteith had delayed himself to go on a fool’s errand for some doctor or other, when he knew perfectly well that she had gone ahead early, and would be there with several perfect hours to spend alone with him if he chose to come. Well, he would do foolish philanthropic things like that! It was vexing but it was like him. Perhaps he wouldn’t be half so attractive if he weren’t like that. And then of course everybody had to have some faults, and she felt sure she could cure him of that if she chose to exert herself.

So Demeter Cass waited a little while and then she called up the house on the other mountain where a woman lay fighting death and waiting for the medicine that was to bring her help.

A servant answered the telephone. She had never heard of Mr. Monteith. She consulted the other servants, but none of them knew him. Dr. Sargent? Oh, yes, Dr. Sargent came up yesterday to see a sick lady; but they had never heard of Mr. Monteith.

Demeter Cass was persistent. She asked if the doctor was not to send some medicine, and at last she got hold of the nurse, and learned that the medicine was to come, but they did not know who was bringing it, perhaps Dr. Sargent himself.

At intervals during the remainder of that restless, boresome day, Demeter Cass retired to the telephone and called up the home where the woman lay between life and death, to know if Alan Monteith had not arrived yet, but the answer was always, he had not arrived. Demeter looked out on the snowy world that seemed more and more a menace to her plans and drew her delicate brows in a frown. Then by and by she called again, and yet again, until the sick woman’s husband grew annoyed and alarmed by turns, and still the medicine had not come.

But Demeter was cunning. She had not left her name or her location. She wanted to talk with Alan herself, not to leave him a mere message. She wanted to make sure she got him, and that he was coming. She suspected him of being able to evade her if she only left a message. If he did not want to come he might pay no attention to her request to call her up.

So Demeter turned her main attention to what she should put on for the evening, in case he did finally arrive.

But Alan Monteith was not thinking of Demeter Cass just then. He was standing in a long homelike room, with big beams in the ceiling, a great fire blazing on the hearth, and a Christmas tree draped with silver fringe and twinkling lights, that had their counterpart in miniature, in tinkling crystal prisms over the mantel.