as launched on the wild sea. There was no returning.

The rendezvous arranged was in what _he_ had called in his letter "the
foyer."

Annesley went slowly down the steps, trying not to look aimless. She
decided to steer for one of the high-back brocaded chairs which had
little satellite tables. Better settle on one in the middle of the hall.

This would give _him_ a chance to see and recognize her from the
description she had written of the dress she would wear (she had not
mentioned that she'd be spared all trouble in choosing, as it was her
only _real_ evening frock), and to notice that she wore, according to
arrangement, a white rose tucked into the neck of her bodice.

She felt conscious of her hands, and especially of her feet and ankles,
for she had not been able to make Mrs. Ellsworth's dress quite long
enough. Luckily it was the fashion of the moment to wear the skirt short,
and she had painted her old white suede slippers silver.

She believed that she had pretty feet. But oh! what if the darn running
up the heel of the pearl-gray silk stocking should show, or have burst
again into a hole as she jumped out of the omnibus? She could have
laughed hysterically, as the escaping women had laughed, when she
realized that the fear of such a catastrophe was overcoming graver
horrors.

Perhaps it was well to have a counter-irritant.

Though Annesley Grayle was the only manless woman in the foyer, the
people who sat there--with one exception--did not stare. Though she
had five feet eight inches of height, and was graceful despite
self-consciousness, her appearance was distinguished rather than
striking. Yes, "distinguished" was the word for it, decided the one
exception who gazed with particular interest at that tall, slight figure
in gray-sequined chiffon too old-looking for the young face.

He was sitting in a corner against the wall, and had in his hands a copy
of the _Sphere_, which was so large when held high and wide open that the
reader could hide behind it. He had been in his corner for fifteen or
twenty minutes when Annesley Grayle arrived, glancing over the top of his
paper with a sort of jaunty carelessness every few minutes at the crowd
moving toward the restaurant, picking out some individual, then dropping
his eyes to the _Sphere_.

For the girl in gray he had a long, appraising look, studying her every
point; but he did the thing so well that, even had she turned her head
his way, she need not ha