There was a momentary tableau. He was vividly aware of the fact that Yvonne had shrunk back in alarm and that a swift look of fear leaped into her surprised eyes. She drew closer to Brood's side--or was it the jostling of the crowd that made it seem to be so? He realised then that she had not seen him in the theatre. Her surprise was genuine. It was not much short of consternation, a fact that he realised with a sudden sinking of the heart. Then his eyes went quickly to his father's face. James Brood was regarding him with a cold, significant smile, as one who understands and despises. “They told me you were here,” faltered Frederic, the words rushing hurriedly through his lips, “and I thought we might run in somewhere and have a bite to eat. I--I want to tell you about Lydia and myself and what------” The carriage-man bawled a number in his ear and jerked open the door of a limousine that had pulled up to the curb. Without a word James Brood handed his wife into the car and then turned to the chauffeur. “Home,” he said, and, without so much as a glance at Frederic, stepped inside. The door was slammed and the car slid out into the maelstrom. Yvonne had sunk back into a corner, huddled down as if suddenly deprived of all her strength. Frederic saw her face as the car moved away. She was staring at him with wide-open, reproachful eyes, as if to say: “Oh, what have you done? What a fool you are!” For a second or two he stood as if petrified, then everything turned red before him, a wicked red that blinded him. He staggered, as if from a blow in the face. “My God!” slipped from his stiff lips, and tears leaped to his eyes--tears of supreme mortification. Like a beaten dog he slunk away, feeling himself pierced by the pitying gaze of every mortal in the street. CHAPTER XVI Long past midnight the telephone in the Desmond apartment rang sharply, insistently. Lydia, who had just fallen asleep, awoke with a start and sat bolt upright in her bed. A clammy perspiration broke out all over her body. There in the darkness she shivered with a dread so desolating that every vestige of strength forsook her and she could only stare helplessly into the black pall that surrounded her. Never before in all her life had she been aroused from sleep by the jangling of a telephone-bell. The sound struck terror to her heart. She knew that something terrible had happened. She knew there had been a catastrophe. She sat there chattering until she heard her mother's door open and then the click of the receiver as it was lifted from the hook. Then she put her fingers to her ears and closed her eyes. The very worst had happened; she was sure of it. The blow had fallen. The one thought that seared her brain was that she had failed him, failed him miserably in the crisis. Oh, if she could only reclaim that lost hour of indecision and cowardice!