e, it's like old times," Jimmy explained to the gang that gave him the
laugh as Martin and the blonde whirled away in a waltz. "An' I don't
give a rap. I'm too damned glad to see 'm back. Watch 'm waltz, eh?
It's like silk. Who'd blame any girl?"

But Martin restored the blonde to Jimmy, and the three of them, with half
a dozen friends, watched the revolving couples and laughed and joked with
one another. Everybody was glad to see Martin back. No book of his been
published; he carried no fictitious value in their eyes. They liked him
for himself. He felt like a prince returned from excile, and his lonely
heart burgeoned in the geniality in which it bathed. He made a mad day
of it, and was at his best. Also, he had money in his pockets, and, as
in the old days when he returned from sea with a pay-day, he made the
money fly.

Once, on the dancing-floor, he saw Lizzie Connolly go by in the arms of a
young workingman; and, later, when he made the round of the pavilion, he
came upon her sitting by a refreshment table. Surprise and greetings
over, he led her away into the grounds, where they could talk without
shouting down the music. From the instant he spoke to her, she was his.
He knew it. She showed it in the proud humility of her eyes, in every
caressing movement of her proudly carried body, and in the way she hung
upon his speech. She was not the young girl as he had known her. She
was a woman, now, and Martin noted that her wild, defiant beauty had
improved, losing none of its wildness, while the defiance and the fire
seemed more in control. "A beauty, a perfect beauty," he murmured
admiringly under his breath. And he knew she was his, that all he had to
do was to say "Come," and she would go with him over the world wherever
he led.

Even as the thought flashed through his brain he received a heavy blow on
the side of his head that nearly knocked him down. It was a man's fist,
directed by a man so angry and in such haste that the fist had missed the
jaw for which it was aimed. Martin turned as he staggered, and saw the
fist coming at him in a wild swing. Quite as a matter of course he
ducked, and the fist flew harmlessly past, pivoting the man who had
driven it. Martin hooked with his left, landing on the pivoting man with
the weight of his body behind the blow. The man went to the ground
sidewise, leaped to his feet, and made a mad rush. Martin saw his
passion-distorted face and wondered what