It's a goal," she declared. "Half of the aspiring gilded youth of the
city would give their eye-teeth to make it. How did you manage?"

"I didn't manage. It was managed for me. Old Poultney Masters put me
in."

"Well, don't scowl at me! For a reporter, you know, it's rather an
achievement to get into The Retreat."

"I suppose so. Though I'm not a reporter now."

"Well, for any newspaper man. What are you, by the way?"

"A sort of all-round experimental editor."

"I hadn't heard of that," said Io, with a quickness which apprised him
that she had been seeking information about him.

"Nobody has. It's only just happened."

"And I'm the first to know of it? That's as it should be," she asserted
calmly. "You shall tell me all about it at dinner."

"Am I taking you in?"

"No: you're taking in my cousin, Esther Forbes. But I'm on your left. Be
nice to me."

Others came in and joined them. Banneker, his inner brain a fiery whorl,
though the outer convolutions which he used for social purposes remained
quite under control, drifted about making himself agreeable and
approving himself to his host as an asset of the highest value. At
dinner, sprightly and mischievous Miss Forbes, who recalled their former
meeting at Sherry's, found him wholly delightful and frankly told him
so. He talked little with Io; but he was conscious to his nerve-ends of
the sweet warmth of her so near him. To her questions about his
developing career he returned vague replies or generalizations.

"You're not drinking anything," she said, as the third course came
on. "Have you renounced the devil and all his works?" There was an
impalpable stress upon the "all."

His answer, composed though it was in tone, quite satisfied her. "I
wouldn't dare touch drink to-night."

After dinner there was faro bank. Banneker did not play. Io, after a run
of indifferent luck, declared herself tired of the game and turned to
him.

"Take me out somewhere where there is air to breathe."

They stood together on the stone terrace, blown lightly upon by a
mist-ladden breeze.

"It ought to be a great drive of rain, filling the world," said Io in
her voice of dreams. "The roar of waters above us and below, and the
glorious sense of being in the grip of a resistless current.... We're
all in the grip of resistless currents. D'you believe that yet, Ban?"

"No."

"Skeptic! You want to work out your own fate. You 'strive to see, to
choose your path.' Well, you've