"Why, he's Howard Maitland!" they heard Dr. Holt say; "you know? The Maitland Iron Works!"
"Oh!" the coroner apologized, "I didn't get on to that! 'Course he's all right."
Then Dr. Holt: "It appears the poor woman tried to get married, but she couldn't find a husband. So she killed herself."
This time the two in the hall did not look at each other. Fred stared up at the stag's glistening eyes. Howard buckled and unbuckled his driving-gauntlets. For the rest of her life, Frederica never saw a mounted deer's head without a stab of remembrance.
It was nearly four o'clock in the morning when everything was attended to and Howard turned his car homeward. "Do sit in front with me, Fred," he said; "you can't sit back there in the tonneau."
"All right," she said, absently, and, getting in, pulled Zippy on to her lap. As she sat down, she suddenly realized that Howard's request implied that he felt an embarrassment for her which she was not feeling for herself. She began to feel it soon enough! Embarrassment flowed in upon them both. Howard talked about Flora—then fell silent: ("She 'tried to get married'!") Then Fred talked about her—and fell silent. ("He needn't worry; I won't drown myself!")
The ride into town was forever! The bleary October dawn had whitened in the mist like a dead face, before they drew up at 15 Payton Street, and for the last ten miles they did not exchange a word. Fred was thinking, dazedly, of Flora; but every now and then would come the stab: "He refused me."
Howard was thinking only of Fred. "Stunning!" he was saying to himself. "She's not a girl! She's a man—no, I don't know any man who would have done what she did. I couldn't have, anyway. I take off my hat to courage like that!"
Not a girl? Fred, not a girl?...
When at last that dreadful night was over, and he had left the terrified Payton household, Frederica—the wonderful, the superwoman (superman, even, compared with Howard himself!), Frederica had, in a flash, been something less than superwoman; she had been pitifully, stupidly, incredibly feminine.