The easiest thing would be for me to write Daniel a note and then pay some street urchin to deliver it for me. I have been called many things in my life but I’ve never been known as a coward. I would have to tell Daniel to his face. I sighed. I had planned to go straight back to the theater for the start of the performance. But then I reasoned that Houdini’s act was not until after nine o’clock. I would have time to go to Daniel’s apartment on Twenty-third Street first and then the Broadway trolley would take me straight to the theater.

I changed rapidly into the black-and-white striped two-piece, spread some dripping on bread, and was out of the door again. And to think I could have been spending the weekend at one of the famous Newport “cottages”! Then a wicked thought came to me. I could tell Daniel I had agreed to go away with Sid and Gus this weekend, to Gus’s cousin in Newport. It would be so much simpler than trying to explain that I was working, and at least nobody could disapprove of Newport. But as well as not being a coward, I am also not a liar. All those years of getting the strap across my backside for telling fibs certainly left their mark!

I was admitted to Daniel’s building by Mrs. O’Shea.

“Well, don’t you look a treat.” She smiled at me approvingly. “Going out on the town with your young man?”

“No, I’m afraid not. I’m going out with friends, but I hoped to see him. Is he at home?”

“I believe I heard his feet on the stairs a short while ago. The poor dear man works himself to a frazzle,” she said. “And he’s been looking so worried lately. He’s been through a lot, hasn’t he, what with being disgraced and losing his poor dear father and all. I’ll be so glad when he has a good woman to look after him.”

Of course this made me feel even worse about what I was going to do. Daniel needed a weekend in the country, and he needed to see his mother. And we should be planning our future together. It was usually the woman who complained that her man was too busy to pay her the proper amount of attention. In our case I was more guilty than he.

I took a deep breath and knocked on his door. His anticipatory smile when he opened it was like a dagger into my heart.

“Molly! Don’t tell me you’ve come to make me dinner again? Or are you going to use your feminine wiles to persuade me to take you to a restaurant?”

“I’m sorry, Daniel. I can’t stay. I just stopped by to tell you that I can’t come to Westchester with you this weekend.”