eer atrocity!"

Her colour was long in returning.

"Philip," she said unsteadily, "I don't think I can stand this--"

"Yes, you can."

"I am too close to the wall. I--"

"Talk to Scott Innis. Take him away from Rosamund Fane; that will tide
you over. Or feed those fool fish; like this! Look how they rush and
flap and spatter! That's amusing, isn't it--for people with the
intellects of canaries. . . . Will you please try to say something? Mrs.
T. West is exhibiting the restless symptoms of a hen turkey at sundown
and we'll all go to roost in another minute. . . . Don't shiver that
way!"

"I c-can't control it; I will in a moment. . . . Give me a chance; talk
to me, Phil."

"Certainly. The season has been unusually gay and the opera most
stupidly brilliant; stocks continue to fluctuate; another old woman
was tossed and gored by a mad motor this morning. . . . More time,
Alixe? . . . With pleasure; Mrs. Vendenning has bought a third-rate
castle in Wales; a man was found dead with a copy of the _Tribune_ in
his pocket--the verdict being in accordance with fact; the Panama
Canal--"

But it was over at last; a flurry of sweeping skirts; ranks of black and
white in escort to the passage of the fluttering silken procession.

"Good-bye," she said; "I am not staying for the dance."

"Good-bye," he said pleasantly; "I wish you better fortune for the
future. I'm sorry I was rough."

He was not staying, either. A dull excitement possessed him, resembling
suspense--as though he were awaiting a denouement; as though there was
yet some crisis to come.

Several men leaned forward to talk to him; he heard without heeding,
replied at hazard, lighted his cigar with the others, and leaned back,
his coffee before him--a smiling, attractive young fellow, apparently in
lazy enjoyment of the time and place and without one care in the world
he found so pleasant.

For a while his mind seemed to be absolutely blank; voices were voices
only; he saw lights, and figures moving through a void. Then reality
took shape sharply; and his pulses began again hammering out the
irregular measure of suspense, though what it was that he was awaiting,
what expecting, Heaven alone knew.

And after a while he found himself in the ballroom.

The younger set was arriving; he recognised several youthful people,
friends of Eileen Erroll; and taking his bearings among these bright,
fresh faces--amid this animated throng, constantly increased by the