“I am that positive,” Bob answered. And then went on more eagerly: “Maybe you haven’t really lost it after all.” He could say that and still tell the truth. “Why, it may be in your room now. You may find it on your table or your dresser when you go upstairs to retire.” Miss Gerald looked at him. “You seem to be rather certain?” she said tentatively. “I am,” said Bob. “I’d almost swear—” He stopped suddenly. It wouldn’t do to be too certain. “Don’t you find your own words rather strange?” the girl asked. “Everything’s funny about me, nowadays,” said Bob. “Did you enjoy renewing your acquaintance with Miss ——?” She called Gee-gee by that other, more conventional name. “I did not. I dislike her profoundly.” “Are you sure?” The violet eyes were almost meditative. “Now I should have thought—” She paused. Bob read the thought, however. A man like him was on a plane with Gee-gee; indeed, much lower. Miss Gerald would be finding in Gee-gee Bob’s affinity next. “You haven’t refused me out-and-out, yet,” he suggested. “To dance, I mean.” “You would rather, of course, I did refuse you?” “Of course,” Bob stammered. The mere thought of dancing with her once again as of yore gave him a sensation of exquisite pain. But naturally she would never dream of dancing with one she considered a—? “Well, you may have the pleasure,” she said mockingly. Bob could not credit his hearing. She would permit him to touch her. Incredible! A great awe fell over him. He could not believe. “I said you might have the pleasure,” she repeated, accenting in the least the last word. Bob caught that accent. Ah, she knew then, what exquisite pain it would be for him to dance with her! She was purposely punishing him; she wished to make him suffer. She would drive a gimlet in his heart and turn it around. Bob somehow got his arm about his divinity and found himself floating around the room, experiencing that dual sensation of being in heaven and in the other place at one and the same time. It was a weird and wonderful dance. Through it all he kept looking down at her hair, though its brightness seemed to dazzle him. Miss Dolly had confided to Bob that he “guided divinely,” but he didn’t guide divinely now; he was too bewildered. Once he bumped his divinity into some one and this did not improve his mental condition. But she bore with him with deadly patience; she was bound to punish him thoroughly, it seemed. Then that dual sensation in Bob’s breast began gradually to partake more of heaven than of the other place, and he yielded to the pure and unadulterated joy of the divinity’s propinquity. He forgot there was a big black blot on his escutcheon, or character. He ceased to remember he was a renegade and criminal. The nearness of the proud golden head set his heart singing until tempestuously and temerariously he flung three words at her, telepathically, from the throbbing depths of his soul.