He left behind him in one of the big private diningrooms a brilliant, high-spirited company of revellers. One of Mrs. Fenwick's guests was Lutie Tresslyn. He sat opposite her at one of the big round tables, and for an hour he had watched with moody eyes her charming, vivacious face as she conversed with the men on either side of her. She was as cool, as self- contained as any woman at the table. There was nothing to indicate that she had not been born to this estate of velvet, unless the freshness of her cheek and the brightness of her eye betrayed her by contrast with the unmistakable haggardness of "the real thing." She was unafraid. All at once Simmy was proud of her. He felt the thrill of something he could not on the moment define, but which he afterwards put down as patriotism! It was just the sort of thrill, he argued, that you have when the band plays at West Point and you see the cadets come marching toward you with their heads up and their chests out,—the thrill that leaves a smothering, unuttered cheer in your throat. He thought of Anne Tresslyn too, and smiled to himself. This was Anne Tresslyn's set, not Lutie's, and yet here she was, a trim little warrior, inside the walls of a fortified place, hobnobbing with the formidable army of occupation and staring holes through the uniforms of the General Staff! She sat in the Tresslyn camp, and there were no other Tresslyns there. She sat with the Wintermills, and—yes, he had to admit it,—she had winked at him slyly when she caught his eye early in the evening. It was a very small wink to be sure and was not repeated. The night was cold. His chauffeur was not to be found by the door-men who ran up and down the line from Fifth to Sixth Avenue for ten minutes before Simmy remembered that he had told the man not to come for him until three in the morning, an hour at which one might reasonably expect a dance to show signs of abating. He was on the point of ordering a taxi-cab when his attention was drawn to a figure that lurked well back in the shadows of the Berkeley Theatre down the street—a tall figure in a long ulster. Despite the darkness, Simmy's intense stare convinced him that it was George Tresslyn who stood over there and gazed from beneath lowered brows at the bright doorway. He experienced a chill that was not due to the raw west wind. There was something sinister about that big, motionless figure, something portentous of disaster. He knew that George had been going down the hill with startling rapidity. On more than one occasion he had tried to stay this downward rush, but without avail. Young Tresslyn was drinking, but he was not carousing. He drank as unhappy men drink, not as the happy ones do. He drank alone.