er fingers
with mischievous tenderness and whispered:

"The moonlit way once more with you, Thessa! Do you remember our first
dance?"

"Can I ever thank God enough for that night's folly!" she said, with
such sudden emotion that his smile altered as he looked into her dark
eyes.

"Yet that dance by moonlight exiled you," he said.

"Do you realise what it saved me from, too? And what it has given
me?"

He wondered whether she included Westmore in the gift. The music
ceased at that moment, and, though the other orchestra began, they
strolled along the flowering balustrade of the terrace together until
they encountered Dulcie and Westmore.

"Have you spoken to your hostess?" inquired Westmore. "She's over
yonder on a dais, enthroned like Germania or a Metropolitan Opera
Valkyrie. Dulcie and I have paid our homage."

So Barres and Thessalie went away to comply with the required
formality; and, when they returned from the rite, they found Esme
Trenor and Corot Mandel cornering Dulcie under a flowering orange tree
while Westmore, beside her, chatted with a most engaging woman who
proved, later, to be a practising physician.

Esme was saying languidly, that anybody could fly into a temper and
kick his neighbours, but that indifference to physical violence was a
condition of mind attained only by the spiritual intellect of the
psychic adept.

"Passivism," he added with a wave of his lank fingers, "is the first
plane to be attained on the journey toward Nirvana. Therefore, I am a
pacifist and this silly war does not interest me in the slightest."

The very engaging woman, who had been chatting with Westmore, looked
around at Esme Trenor, evidently much amused.

"I imagined that you were a pacifist," she said. "I fancy, Mr. Mandel,
also, is one."

"Indeed, I am, madam!" said Corot Mandel. "I've plenty to do in life
without strutting around and bawling for blood at the top of my
lungs!"

"Thank heaven," added Esme, "the President has kept us out of war.
This business of butchering others never appealed to me--except for
the slightly unpleasant sensations which I experience when I read the
details."

"Oh. Then unpleasant sensations so appeal to you?" inquired Westmore,
very red.

"Well, they _are_ sensations, you know," drawled Esme. "And, for a man
who experiences few sensations of any sort, even unpleasant ones are
pleasurable."

Mandel yawned and said:

"The war is an outrageous bore. All wars are stupi