e
right thing. Must say it was the right thing. I won't miss that
twelve-fifteen."

"Graham," Paredes sneered, "is a wonderful type--Apollo in the flesh and
Billy Sunday in the conscience."

Then, as Bobby started to protest, Maria entered, more dazzling than at
dinner; and the dancers swayed less boisterously, the chatter at the
tables subsided, the orchestra seemed to hesitate as a sort of obeisance.

A man Bobby had never seen before followed her to the table. His
middle-aged figure was loudly clothed. His face was coarse and clean
shaven. He acknowledged the introductions sullenly.

"I've only a minute," Bobby said to Maria.

He continued, however, to raise his glass indifferently to his lips. All
at once his glass shook. Maria's dark and sparkling face became blurred.
He could no longer define the features of the stranger. He had never
before experienced anything of the kind. He tried to account for it, but
his mind became confused.

"Maria!" he burst out. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Her contralto laugh rippled.

"Bobby looks so funny! Carlos! Leetle Bobby looks so queer! What is the
matter with him?"

Bobby's anger was lost in the increased confusion of his senses, but
through that mental turmoil tore the thought of Graham and his intention
of going to the Cedars. With shaking fingers he dragged out his watch. He
couldn't read the dial. He braced his hands against the table, thrust
back his chair, and arose. The room tumbled about him. Before his eyes
the dancers made long nebulous bands of colour in which nothing had form
or coherence. Instinctively he felt he hadn't dined recklessly enough to
account for these amazing symptoms. He was suddenly afraid.

"Carlos!" he whispered.

He heard Maria's voice dimly:

"Take him home."

A hand touched his arm. With a supreme effort of will he walked from the
room, guided by the hand on his arm. And always his brain recorded fewer
and fewer impressions for his memory to struggle with later.

At the cloak room some one helped him put on his coat. He was walking
down steps. He was in some kind of a conveyance. He didn't know what it
was. An automobile, a carriage, a train? He didn't know. He only
understood that it went swiftly, swaying from side to side through a
sable pit. Whenever his mind moved at all it came back to that sensation
of a black pit in which he remained suspended, swinging from side to
side, trying to struggle up against impossib