e shall talk further upon these matters ... and then--perhaps--who
knows what may come of it?" He finished dreamily.

As he took her hand and held it, she sensed a tender smile upon his
lips, and a half uttered question in his eyes. But he said no word. He
was almost out of sight in the darkness when a thought flashed across
her mind. She called him back.

"Mr. Good ... why didn't Roger drink anything to-night? Have you any
idea?"

"Yes," he said simply. "I told him ... what it did to me."

CHAPTER V

A SLEEPER WAKES

With the first frost Judith closed her house at Braeburn and returned to
the city. For a little while she rested quietly, recovering from the
strenuous gaieties of the summer. Her friends--particularly the
men--smiled when she said that she never had a vacation: but that was
literally true. The demands upon her time were far more rigorous than
were those of any business man of her acquaintance. In the conventional
significance of the word her life was hardly toilsome, but it was none
the less most arduously occupied.

There was the management of her huge house--in itself a task of no mean
proportions. There were the board meetings of the various civic,
religious and charitable organisations, to which she devoted a very
conscientious interest. There were the inescapable appointments with her
hairdresser, her manicurist, her masseuse, and the small army of
personal attendants who joined their efforts in the conservation and
embellishment of her body beautiful. There were the "courses" she must
take, the books that must be read, and the plays that must be seen. And
finally, as an end or as a cause--she never could determine which--were
the luncheons, the receptions, the dinners, the calls, and the balls,
which followed one another in never ending course and in never ending
monotony.

After a few weeks of what was as near to inaction as she ever attained,
Judith plunged anew into the rapid course she had swum since childhood.
But for the first time in her life, she was consciously dissatisfied.
For the first time she knew, and admitted that she knew, that her
multifarious activities were not enough. There was something lacking. It
was in such a mood that Imrie found her when he came up to see her one
evening. For the first time in the years he had known her, there were
little lines of discontent and ennui about her mouth. Her usual
vivacity, her cheerful wit, seemed to have vanished, and in t