He turned to the key-counter. The clerk, with infallible instinct--without his request--handed him the key to his room, not lacking acquaintance with men of Mr. Rawn's acquaintance, and knowing money when he saw it.... Rawn passed down the hall, went up two flights in the elevator, turned into the left-hand corridor, and at length knocked deliberately at a door where a light showed. IV "Come!" called a soft voice. He knocked again, a trifle hesitant, and looked down the corridor, each way. The voice repeated, "Come!" He pushed open the door. Virginia Delaware stood before her dressing-glass, her toilet for evening completed except perhaps for a touch or two about her coiffure. She turned now, and flushed as she saw her visitor. "Mr. Rawn!" she exclaimed; "I thought it was the maid! I had just called her." Rawn turned and shut the door. "Never mind her," he said. "I will be gone in a minute. I just wanted--" "You must go!" she exclaimed. "You ought not to have come--it is not permitted--it is not right!" "How stunning you look, Miss Delaware!" was all he said. He had never before seen her arrayed in keeping with these other lilies of the field. Indeed, his life had given him small acquaintance with conventions, or those who practised them. He had no mental process of analysis as he gazed at her now, or he might have seen that after all the young woman's costume was no more than one of filmy blue, draped over a pure and lustrous white. He could not have named the fashion which drew it so daringly close at hip and hem as to reveal frankly all the lines of a figure which needed not to dread revelation for its own sake, whether or not for other sake. He could not have guessed what skill belonged to the hand that fashioned this raiment, could not have told its cost. To him the young woman was very beautiful; and he was too much confused to be capable of analysis. The corsage of the gown, cut square and daringly deep, displayed neck and shoulders white as those of any woman of any city. Her figure gave lines had her costume not aided. She was beautiful, yes. V And there was something more, Rawn could not tell what. There was some air of excitement, of exaltation, some sort of fever about her, upon her. In her eyes shone something Rawn had never noticed there before. Hastily he made such inventory as he might of unanalyzed charms. He arrived at his conclusion, which was, that Virginia Delaware would do! "You could travel in fast company, my dear girl," said he approvingly. "What do you mean?" She turned upon him.