"I am not drunk!" flared Sheridan Kaire, "and what's more you haven't seen me drunk this whole week more than once! Or, at most, twice!" "Drunk or sober," said John Burnarde quite unflinchingly, "I request that you do not involve us in any of your escapades!" "Escapades?" scoffed Kaire. "You----" From the shadow to which she had partly [181] retreated, Daphne sprang out, and brushed the bright hair from her eyes. "Why John!" she cried, "don't you know me? It's Daphne! Daphne Bretton!" "_What_?" staggered the new dean. "You? Why, Daphne! Why----" "What difference is it to you who it is?" interposed Kaire a bit roughly. But before anybody could answer the President herself had jumped to her feet. "_You_, Daphne Bretton?" she gasped accusingly. "_You_? What--are--you--doing here? Isn't it enough that you have disgraced your college without adding this fresh escapade to your career? What--what wild, unprincipled doings are you up to now? Is there no shame in you? No----" With an imperious gesture she turned to her host. "Surely, Mr. Kaire," she implored him, "you are not in earnest about this girl? Are we really to understand for one moment that you contemplate allying yourself with this girl? Putting the stewardship of your great fortune in her hands? A girl with such a history? A girl with such a character?" "Miss Bretton's character is not under [182] discussion here," said John Burnarde decisively. "Once again," snapped Sheridan Kaire, "I ask what affair Daphne Bretton's character is to you?" "It's this to me," began John Burnarde with his tortured eyes fairly raking the beloved young face before him. ('What _was she_ doing here?' ached every pulse in his body. So lovely, so irresponsible, so strangely all alone with this notorious young roue.) "It's this to me," he repeated dully, glanced back for a single worried second at his frail mother's dreadful pallor, and crossed his arms on his breast. "_What_ is it to me, Daphne?" he asked. "It's this to him," said Daphne fearlessly. "He liked me a little, but when the trouble came, it had to stop. It wasn't his fault! My father said it wasn't his fault! There were merely other things--other people, that had to be considered. It's all right. It's quite all right!" Defiantly the little chin lifted. "Quite all right! I'm going--away--with Sheridan Kaire!" With a piteously vain effort John Burnarde's mother struggled to reach her crutch [183] and lapsed helplessly back into her chair again. Only her white up-turned face betrayed her shock. But for once in his life John Burnarde did not notice his mother. "Oh, no--no!" he cried. "You don't know what you're doing! A lovely--lovely--young girl like you to give yourself to a man like Kaire with a reputation so notorious that----"