r toward her brother:

"It is incredible!" she murmured; "she must be perfectly mad to make
such an exhibition of herself. Can't anybody stop her? Can't anybody
send her home?"

Austin said sullenly but distinctly: "The thing for us to do is to get
out. . . . Nina--if you are ready--"

"But--but what about Gerald?" faltered Eileen, turning piteously to
Selwyn. "We can't leave him--there!"

The man straightened up and turned his drawn face toward her:

"Do you wish me to get him?"

"Y-you can't do that--can you?"

"Yes, I can; if you wish it. Do you think there is anything in the world
I can't do, if you wish it?"

As he rose she laid her hand on his arm:

"I--I don't ask it--" she began.

"You do not have to ask it," he said with a smile almost genuine.
"Austin, I'm going to get Gerald--and Nina will explain to you that
he's to be left to me if any sermon is required. I'll go back with him
in the motor-boat. Boots, you'll drive home in my place."

As he turned, still smiling and self-possessed, Eileen whispered
rapidly: "Don't go. I care for you too much to ask it."

He said under his breath: "Dearest, you cannot understand."

"Yes--I do! Don't go. Philip--don't go near--her--"

"I must."

"If you do--if you go--h-how can you c-care for me as you say you
do?--when I ask you not to--when I cannot endure--to--"

She turned swiftly and stared across at Alixe; and Alixe, unsteady in
the flushed brilliancy of her youthful beauty, half rose in her seat and
stared back.

Instinctively the young girl's hand tightened on Selwyn's arm: "She--she
is beautiful!" she faltered; but he turned and led her from the table,
following Austin, his sister, and Lansing; and she clung to him almost
convulsively when he halted on the edge of the lawn.

"I must go back," he whispered--"dearest--dearest--I must."

"T-to Gerald? Or--_her_?"

But he only muttered: "They don't know what they're doing. Let me go,
Eileen"--gently detaching her fingers, which left her hands lying in
both of his.

She said, looking up at him: "If you go--if you go--whatever time you
return--no matter what hour--knock at my door. Do you promise? I shall
be awake. Do you promise?"

"Yes," he said with a trace of impatience--the only hint of his anger at
the prospect of the duty before him.

So she went away with Nina and Austin and Boots; and Selwyn turned back,
sauntering quietly toward the table where already the occupants had
apparently f