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    "I'm sorry," he said pleasantly. "It's not a matter of clothes. But the whole thing is quite out of the question."
    A man arrived by appointment just then and she had to leave him, but that was not the end. For the rest of the day she had appeared unexpectedly a number of times and renewed the subject, until finally she just took it for granted that he was coming, no matter how often he declined, and went on with her plans, telling him what to do and where to meet her; telling him who would be there that he ought to meet for the sake of business, even if not for his own sake, until like the continual dropping that wears the stone, he actually found himself considering the possibility of going.
    What if she was right and he ought to get out and get acquainted with other kinds of people? What would his family have said to that?
    Long ago, when he was a little boy, his mother used to have a question she would put to him when they were considering a perplexity. She would say, "What do you think God would say if you were to ask His advice?" And that somehow always settled the matter the way his own conscience had already tentatively settled it. But since he had been out in the world, his mother gone and no one to suggest submitting a matter to God--a God that so many people nowadays didn't seem to believe in--Reuben had gotten in the habit instead of saying, "I wonder what Dad and Mother would say about it?" Because it had been a settled fact in his mind that Dad and Mother used always to think what God would think. And he was pretty well decided that neither God nor his mother would pick out this special girl to conduct his venture into an alien world.
    And yet, he wasn't a kid any longer, and he could surely stand a few hours of contact with a world that wasn't his own. And it wasn't as if he couldn't leave when he chose, always provided he didn't accept a part in that fool play. And of course he wouldn't do that! And then, quite the most important of all the phases of the matter was that this was his boss's daughter who was asking him, and he wasn't all sure but it might affect his job if he didn't go--at least for a short time.
    So he had almost decided he would take in a brief stay at Glindenwold. Well, anyway, he would go long enough to look over the land and see how it lay.
    And now, how was this affair of the moment going to fit in?
    He couldn't, of course, get through this in time to go to Glindenwold tonight. That was what Anise Glinden had wanted. She was planning to have the first rehearsal of the play tonight. She had told him he might watch it the first night and be all ready to get to work on it for the next day. She would have a young actor come out to take the part she wanted him to take, just for the one night, and let him see how simple and easy it was.
    Perhaps it was just as well that he shouldn't be able to go tonight, then they would start without him and she wouldn't be harping on his taking part. Besides, he needed to see just what this was and not get tied up to something that he would hate.
    He couldn't go tonight, even though she had suggested driving by his boarding place and picking him up in her car. This girl in the ambulance would not be out of the hospital in time for him to go, and he had promised to take care of the kid. What could he do but telephone Miss Glinden that he wouldn't be down until tomorrow?
    Then the ambulance whirled skillfully around the corner into a side street and brought up before a large, gloomy tenement, which bore the sign in one dreary window D ay N ursery , and the driver stopped his car.
    "Make it snappy!" he said to Reuben as he swung down to the irregular old brick sidewalk.
    Reuben nodded and hurried up the wooden steps. He didn't care much about this part of his job, but he had promised, and he could still see the anguish in the eyes of the sick girl.
    He glanced nervously back toward the ambulance, wondering if she could see out, but he saw she could not. As