ment be off when it never had been on? Grace made up
her mind to talk to him very plainly, for the last time, that evening.
She knew he would be at the Vandergilts' dinner dance that night. Well,
she was going there, anyhow. Therefore she went. She almost had to elbow
her way to where he stood. Mrs. Vandergilt was beside him; but Grace
could see that H. R. owned the house.

"How do you do, my dear?" said Mrs. Vandergilt, so very graciously that
Grace was filled with fury.

It was plain that H. R. was making a professional politician of Mrs.
Vandergilt. Grace smiled at her--that is, she made her lips do it
mechanically. Then she addressed the fiance to whom she was not engaged:

"Hendrik!"

That was all she actually said, but, with her eyes, in the manner known
only to women who are sure they are not in love, she commanded him to
follow her.

"You see him all the time and we don't get a chance very often,"
protested a vulgar little thing whose father was a financial pirate of
the first rank and had given her all the predatory instincts. "Go on,
H. R.! Tell us some more. Do!"

Grace's eyes grew very bright and hard, and her cheeks flushed.

"I have news for you," she said to H. R., calmly ignoring the others.

"I am sorry, children," said H. R., regretfully. "Business before
pleasure."

"Your business," persisted the vulgar little thing, "is to obey!"

"Hence my exit," he said, and followed Grace.

She led the way to the conservatory. She was conscious of her own
displeasure. This enabled her to dispense with the necessity of finding
reasons for her own feelings. She halted beside an elaborately carved
marble seat, built for two, and motioned for him to sit down. He looked
at her. She then said:

"Sit down!"

He obeyed. Then she sat beside him. The seat was skilfully screened by
palms and ferns.

"I had a little talk with father this morning," she went on, and
frowned--in advance.

"You poor thing!" he murmured, sympathetically, as though he were
thinking of what she must have suffered.

As a matter of fact his mind was full of the conviction that she herself
did not know which way she was going to jump and it behooved him to pick
the right way.

"He asked me whether I loved you," she went on, sternly.

"Well, the answer to that was an easy syllable. When we go back you tell
Mrs. Vandergilt that you have decided to allow me to serve under her.
Don't worry; I'll be the boss. Ethel has played up like