Carlotta dressed herself with unusual care--not in black this time, but in
white. She coiled her yellow hair in a soft knot at the back of her head,
and she resorted to the faintest shading of rouge. She intended to be gay,
cheerful. The ride was to be a bright spot in Wilson's memory. He
expected recriminations; she meant to make him happy. That was the secret
of the charm some women had for men. They went to such women to forget
their troubles. She set the hour of their meeting at nine, when the late
dusk of summer had fallen; and she met him then, smiling, a faintly
perfumed white figure, slim and young, with a thrill in her voice that was
only half assumed.

"It's very late," he complained. "Surely you are not going to be back at
ten."

"I have special permission to be out late."

"Good!" And then, recollecting their new situation: "We have a lot to talk
over. It will take time."

At the White Springs Hotel they stopped to fill the gasolene tank of the
car. Joe Drummond saw Wilson there, in the sheet-iron garage alongside of
the road. The Wilson car was in the shadow. It did not occur to Joe that
the white figure in the car was not Sidney. He went rather white, and
stepped out of the zone of light. The influence of Le Moyne was still on
him, however, and he went on quietly with what he was doing. But his hands
shook as he filled the radiator.