cross the night, and the rooms inside were heavy
with the fragrance of roses and the smell of champagne. Upstairs in
Lorimer's room, Thayer and Bobby Dane were watching the lethargic sleep
which had fallen upon their host, and counting the moments until Arlt
could bring the doctor back with him. Downstairs, alone in the abandoned
dining-room, Beatrix still sat at the disordered table, with her head
bowed forward upon her clasped hands.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"It's a devilish mess, do what you will," Bobby said grimly, the next
morning.

"The punishment seems a good deal out of proportion to the cause,"
Thayer replied briefly.

"Hh!" Bobby grunted. "I think he did well to get off without a genuine
case of D. T."

"I was speaking of your cousin, not of Lorimer."

Bobby stared at him in astonishment.

"Really, Thayer, I can't see any cause that was of Beatrix's making," he
returned haughtily.

"It was mistaken judgment, to say the least, to have champagne in the
house," Thayer answered.

"Beatrix had nothing to do with that," Bobby blazed forth angrily. "It
was that brute of a Lorimer, and he deserves all he got, and more, too.
I saw the order to the caterer, made out in Beatrix's handwriting, and
there wasn't a pint of champagne on it. Lorimer sent in the order
afterwards, just as he invited that serpent of a Lloyd Avalons. Beatrix
couldn't help herself."

"She could have countermanded the order."

"She didn't know it till the guests were there. I was with her when she
discovered it, and she took it like a heroine. She was perfectly
helpless. She couldn't make a scene in her own house, and she couldn't
reasonably be expected to send her guests home. She knew exactly what
was bound to happen, what she couldn't help happening, and she kept her
head steady and faced the thing as boldly as she could. I never thought
you would be the one to go back on her, Thayer."

Thayer started to speak. Then he squared his jaw, and was silent. After
a long interval, he said humbly,--

"I have wronged your cousin, Dane. I am very sorry."

"So am I," Bobby returned flatly. "Beatrix has come to where she needs
every friend she owns in the world to stand by her. By to-night, the
story of that supper will have spread from the Battery to Poughkeepsie
bridge. It will be garbled and twisted into all manner of shapes, and it
will come boomeranging back at her from every quarter of the town. When
it comes to gossip, we find Ma