nd smiled benignly up the
table. Side by side at the farther end, Arlt and Beatrix seemed
powerless to take their eyes from his face. Lorimer caught the eye of
Beatrix and instantly his face lighted, as he kissed his hand to her.

"Supper's a gran' success, dear girl," he called gayly. "Ought to be,
cost 'nough, an' has been no end trouble; but it pays. People will know
wha' we think of Arlt now. He's geniush, 'n no mishtake; are n' you,
Arlt?"

"Bobby," Sally whispered; "I must go away, I can't bear this for another
minute."

Bobby nodded comprehendingly.

"Slip out, the next time he begins on Thayer. I think you can do it, and
you oughtn't to stay. I wish the others would go, too."

"They may follow me. I would break it up, if I dared; but--Bobby, I'm
afraid."

"So am I," Bobby growled through his shut teeth. "Come back in the
morning, Sally. Beatrix may need you. I'd go with you now; but I dare
not leave things."

But Lorimer's eye was upon them.

"Wha' now, Sally?" he asked jovially. "Bobby been making a bad pun, that
you look so savage?"

Sally hesitated. For one instant, she eyed her host as if he had been a
scorpion that had crawled across her path. Then she controlled herself,
and her voice took on its customary mocking drawl.

"No; I only feel savage because I know you must have set the clocks
ahead. Just see! It is high time we all were going home, and you know I
always hate to start."

Lorimer glanced at the clock on the mantel. Then he turned to the man
behind his chair.

"Stop tha' clock!" he commanded. "We can' have anybody talk 'bout going
home yet. Night's only jus' begun, an' there's quarts more champagne.
Beatrix did n' wan' us to have any; but I don' believe in being stingy."

Sally had already risen, and one or two other women, casting furtive,
apologetic glances towards Beatrix, were hurriedly following Sally's
example. In the slight confusion, it seemed to Thayer that his chance
had come, and he took it. Unfortunately, however, for the once he had
reckoned without his man. He had kept careful count of the glasses which
Lorimer had emptied since he had sat down at the table, and he knew that
the danger limit was not far distant. In fact, the danger limit was
already passed. Thayer had had no means of taking into account the
glasses which Lorimer had slyly emptied, during his short absence from
the room before they had gone to the table. The mischief was already
done. The slightest