take you
to the Biltmore or somewhere else if you like."

Joan shook her head. "Not to-night, Marty. I'm going to bed early, for
a change."

"Aren't you going to give me one evening, then?" His question was
apparently as casual as his attitude. He stood with his hands in his
pockets and his legs wide apart and his teeth showing. He might have
been talking to a sister.

"Oh, lots, presently. I'm so tired to-night, old boy."

He would have given Parnassus for a different answer. "All right then,"
he said. "So long."

"So long, Marty! Don't be too late." She nodded and smiled and went
upstairs.

And he nodded and smiled and went down--to the mental depths. "What am
I to do?" he asked himself. "What am I to do?" And he put his arms into
the coat that was held out and took his hat. In the street the soft
April light was fading, and the scent of spring was blown to him from
the Park. He turned into Fifth Avenue in company with a horde of
questions that he couldn't shake off. He couldn't believe that any of
all this was true. Was there no one in all this world of people who
would help him and give him a few words of advice? "Oh, Father," he
said from the bottom of his heart, "dear old Father, where are you?"

The telephone bell was ringing as Joan went into her room. Gilbert
Palgrave spoke--lightly and fluently and with easy words of flattery.

She laughed and sat on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs and put
the instrument on her knee. "You read all that in a book," she said.
"I'm tired. Yesterday and the night before... No... No... All right,
then. Fetch me in an hour." She put the receiver back.

"Why not?" she said to herself, ringing for her maid. "Bed's for old
people. Thank God, I sha'n't be old for a century."

She presented her back to the deft-fingered girl and yawned. But the
near-by clatter of traffic sounded in her ears.

II

Gilbert Palgrave turned back to his dressing table. An hour gave him
ample time to get ready.

"Don't let that bath get cold," he said. "And look here. You may take
those links out. I'll wear the pearls instead."

The small, eel-like Japanese murmured sibilantly and disappeared into
the bathroom.

This virginal girl, who imagined herself able to play with fire without
burning her fingers, was providing him with most welcome amusement. And
he needed it. He had been considerably bored of late--always a
dangerous mood for him to fall into. He was thirty-one. Fo