n the
corridor. She unfastened her coat, and he saw her white dress and
pearls. "Am I fine enough for an evening like this?" she asked him;
"you see it is just the dress I wear at home."

"It seems to me quite a superlative frock--and I am glad that your hat
is lined with blue."

"Why?"

"Your cloak last night was heavenly, and now this--it matches your
eyes--"

"Oh." She sat very still.

"Shouldn't I have said that? I didn't think--"

"I am glad you didn't think--"

"Oh, are you?"

"Yes. I hate people who weigh their words--" The color came up finely
into her cheeks.

When Dr. McKenzie returned, Derry found a table, and gave his order.

Jean refused to consider anything but an ice. "She doesn't eat at such
moments," Doctor McKenzie told his young host. "She lives on
star-dust, and she wants me to live on star-dust. It is our only
quarrel. She'll think me sordid because I am going to have broiled
lobster."

Derry laughed, yet felt that it was after all a serious matter. His
appetite, too, was gone. He too wanted only an ice! The Doctor's
order was, however, sufficiently substantial to establish a balance.

"May I dance with her?" Derry asked, as the music brought the couples
to their feet.

"I don't usually let her. Not in a place like this. But her eyes are
begging--and I spoil her, Drake."

Curious glances followed the progress of the young millionaire and his
pretty partner. But Derry saw nothing but Jean. She was like
thistledown in his arms, she was saying tremendously interesting things
to him, in her lovely voice.

"I cried all through the scene where Cinderella sits on the door-step.
Yet it really wasn't so very sad--was it?"

"I think it was sad. She was such a little starved thing--starved for
love."

"Yes. It must be dreadful to be starved for love."

He glanced down at her. "You have never felt it?"

"No, except after my mother died--I wanted her--"

"My mother is dead, too."

The Doctor sat alone at the head of the table and ate his lobster; he
ate war bread and a green salad, and drank a pot of black coffee, and
was at peace with the world. Star-dust was all very well for those
young things out there. He laughed as they came back to him. "Each to
his own joys--the lobster was very good, Drake."

They hardly heard him. Jean had a rosy parfait with a strawberry on
top. Derry had another.

They talked of the screen play, and the man who had failed. If