and seated herself at the
piano, saying she had enough of Hargrave.

She was still playing the quaint, sweet dance called "The Orchid," and
Hargrave was leaning on the piano beside her watching Cecil and Athalie
drifting through the dusk to the music's rhythm, when the door opened
and somebody came in.

Athalie, in Cecil's arms, turned her head, looking back over her
shoulder. Dane loomed tall in the twilight.

"Oh!" she exclaimed; "I am so glad!"--slipping out of Cecil's arms and
wheeling on Dane, both hands outstretched.

The others came up, also, with quick, gay greetings, and after a
moment or two of general and animated chatter Athalie drew Dane into a
corner and made room for him beside her on the sofa. Peggy had turned
on the music machine again and, snubbing Hargrave, was already
beginning the Miraflores with Cecil Reeve.

Athalie said: "_Are_ you well? That's the first question."

He said he was well.

"And did you find your lost city?"

He said, quietly: "We found Yhdunez."

"We?"

"I and my white companion."

"Why didn't you bring him with you this evening?" she asked. "Did you
tell him I invited him?"

"Yes."

"Oh.... Couldn't he come?"

And, as he made no answer: "Couldn't he?" she repeated. "Who is he,
anyway--"

"Clive Bailey."

She sat motionless, looking at him, the question still parting her
lips. Dully in her ears the music sounded. The pallor which had
stricken her face faded, grew again, then waned in the faint return of
colour.

Dane, who was looking away from her rather fixedly, spoke first, still
not looking at her: "Yes," he said in even, agreeable tones, "Clive
was my white companion.... I gave him your note to read.... He did not
seem to think that he ought to come."

"Why?" Her lips scarcely formed the word.

"--As long as you were not aware of whom you were inviting.... There
had been some misunderstanding between you and him--or so I
gathered--from his attitude."

A few moments more of silence; then she was fairly prepared.

"Is he well?" she asked coolly.

"Yes. He had one of those nameless fevers, down there. He's coming out
of it all right."

"Is he--his appearance--changed?"

"He's changed a lot, judging from the photographs he showed me taken
three or four years ago. He's changed in other ways, too, I fancy."

"How?"

"Oh, I only surmise it. One hears about people--and their
characteristics.... Clive is a good deal of a man.... I never had a
bett