hile the low, contented murmur of
conversation and light laughter attending completion of the first course
afforded assurance that the company was well chosen and the atmosphere
assertive in qualities that made for equanimity and good cheer.

She smiled slightly, nodding at the butler, who had been watching her
anxiously, and then glanced out the corner of her eye at Professor
Simec, seated at her right. She had entertained doubts concerning him,
had, in fact, resented the business necessity which had brought him
thither as guest of honor, not through any emotion approximating
inhospitality but wholly because of her mistrust as to the effect of
this alien note upon her dinner, which was quite impromptu, having been
arranged at the eleventh hour in deference to the wishes of Jerry Dane,
a partner of Colcord's, who was handling the firm's foreign war patents.

She had done the best she could as to guests, had done exceedingly well,
as it chanced, fortune having favored her especially in the cases of
several of those who sat about the table. And now Simec was fully
involved in conversation with Bessie Dane, who seemed deeply
interested. As for the man, weazened and attenuate, she could catch only
his profile--the bulging, hairless brow, and beard curling outward from
the tip, forming sort of a crescent, which she found hardly less
sinister than the cynical twist where grizzled whiskers and mustaches
conjoined and the cold, level white eyes that she had noted as dominant
characteristics when he was presented.

Simec was a laboratory recluse who had found his _metier_ in the war.
Rumor credited to him at least one of the deadliest chemical
combinations employed by the allied armies. But it was merely rumor;
nothing definite was known. These are things of which little is hinted
and less said. None the less, intangible as were his practical
achievements--whatever they might be--his reputation was substantial,
enhanced, small doubt, by the very vagueness of his endeavors. The
element of mystery, which his physical appearance tended not to allay,
invested him, as it were, with a thaumaturgic veil through which was
dimly revealed the man. It was as though his personality was merely a
nexus to the things he stood for and had done, so that he appeared to
Evelyn less a human entity than a symbol. But at least Bessie Dane was
interested and the fine atmosphere of the table was without a taint.

Shrugging almost imperceptibly, she