!"--Myrna's eyebrows went up archly. "Didn't I tell
you that I have been arranging it for a whole week? I was only waiting
for cable replies to some of my letters before speaking to you, and--"

"And of course as you have not overlooked minor details, I suppose we
sail sometime next week!" her father interrupted with mild sarcasm.

"No," said Myrna placidly. "From Havre, the day after to-morrow, by
the _Lorraine_."

Henry Bliss sat down weakly in a chair. He removed his cigar from his
lips, and made one or two helpless passes with it in the air.

"Impossible!" he finally exploded. "Absolutely impossible! Utterly
out of the question!"

"I don't see why," observed Myrna, quite undisturbed.

"You don't see why? No, of course, you don't see why"--Henry Bliss was
still waving his cigar. "Well, I can't run away at a moment's notice,
can I? Good heavens! The day after to-morrow! There's a thousand and
one affairs that would have to be attended to before I could even think
of it!"

"Which, of course, isn't true at all"--Myrna's laugh rippled merrily
through the room. "There are perhaps a dozen social engagements, and
two or three other affairs for which you will have to send 'regrets,'
and"--she perched herself cosily on the arm of her father's chair--"and
your secretary will do that for you. In fact, I told him he was to do
it to-morrow morning."

"You--_what_? Well, I'll be damned!" gasped Henry Bliss.

"Father!"

"Well, it was excusable!" muttered Henry Bliss. "I--I am half inclined
to repeat it."

Myrna's arm slipped around her father's neck. He was quite manageable,
of course--but still he had to be managed. For, if what had come
within so narrow a margin of being a tragedy with a fatal ending had
forced her hand and forced the inevitable, as it were, upon her, she
could at least see to it that the adjustment of the new order of things
was of her own arranging. It was inevitable that she would marry Jean,
she had decided that long ago; it was only the "day" itself which,
until all this had introduced a new factor into her plans, had been at
all vague in her mind. But with Paul Valmain eliminated, and her
quarrel with Jean made up as he had lain there dangerously hurt that
night of the duel, everything had taken on a totally different aspect.
Perhaps she had yielded a little weakly under sick-bed influences, but
however that might be, she was now Jean's fiancee, though it was not
publicly an