ed away from the moonlight and sands and white arms, having
accomplished his purpose of the spanking, cut forever chains that
galled, and was well content with himself and the world.

Back at Highcliff the beautiful Violet had been undergoing the rites of
retirement, assisted by her very well-skilled maid, deep in an exciting
dream of conquest. As she let her soft, perfumed, silken garments be
taken from her one at a time until her pearly body was exposed to the
brisk sea air, for which tonic Susette had thrown wide both broad
windows, she was weighing in her shrewd little gutter-gamin mind the
advantages of the road to the right against the turn to the left. The
Hilliard "Rosie Posie Girl" in the fall produced by Weiner with all his
trained staff, command of a big new theatre and three others, and
following road prestige appealed strongly to her cupidity, which had
been well trained in getting dimes from tight pockets in cheap cafes and
ten, twenty and thirty theatres, but she had seen a grouping of Dennis
Farraday's name in the paper a few days ago with the names of some young
New York multimillionaires in a National Commission, and she knew that
he and his "pile" were worthy of the effort of her charms. Also she had
seen big, broad, breezy, gallant Dennis himself at luncheon with Mr.
Vandeford in the Astor not ten days before, and her designs had been
decidedly set in his direction. To her thinking, big, broad, breezy,
gallant men were always easy. As Susette enveloped her rosiness from the
sea air in a soft white cloud of chiffon and embroidery, removed the
rose mules from her feet, helped her in between the fragrant linen
sheets that were as soft as rich silk, threw over her a rose-colored
puff of silk and lace and down, turned on her reading lamp, upon whose
shade wanton fauns and nymphs sported, piled her pillows high and left
her, the scales were about going down on the side in which was placed
"The Purple Slipper," Mr. Dennis Farraday--and Miss Patricia Adair, who
at that time was the unknown quantity which Fate often throws in any
balance.

With a luxurious sigh and flexing of her long, supple body the Violet
picked up the business-like copy of the Violet manuscript which Mr.
Adolph Meyers had sent her instead of the beribboned, purple
"Renunciation of Rosalind," and began to read the first page when the
telephone beside her bed rang with a soft tinkle. She picked up the
ivory receiver and into it murmured a