His advent into the sitting-room produced a gratifying sensation. "Ha! Who comes here!" cried Mr. Martel. "The glass of fashion and the mould of form." Then he came forward for close inspection. "Hadn't you any better studs than those, my boy?" "They are the ones that came in the shirt," said Quin, instantly on the defensive. "Well, they hardly do justice to the occasion. Step upstairs, Cassius, and get my pearl ones out of the top chiffonier drawer." "I wish Captain Phipps could see you," said Rose admiringly. "You should have seen his face when I told him you were going to-night! He wasn't invited, you know." "Where did you see him?" Quin asked, brushing a speck of lint from the toe of his shining shoe. "Here. He's been coming twice a week to work with Papa Claude ever since you left. Give 'em to me, Cass"--this to her brother. "I'll put them in." "Aren't they too little for the buttonholes?" asked Quin anxiously. "Not enough to matter," Rose insisted. Then, as she finished, she added in a whisper: "Tell Nell somebody sent his love." "Nothing doing," laughed Quin with a superior shrug; "somebody else is taking his." The curb was lined with automobiles by the time he arrived at the Bartletts'. The house looked strangely unfamiliar with its blaze of lights and throng of arriving guests. He instinctively felt in his pocket for his latch-key, and then remembered, and waited for the strange butler to open the door. The inside of the house looked even less natural than the outside. The floors were cleared for dancing and the mantels were banked high with flowers and ferns. Under the steps the musicians were already tuning their instruments. "Upstairs, sir; first room to your left," said the important person at the door, and Quin followed the stream of black-coated figures who were filing up the stairs and turning into the room he had occupied a short week ago. It was just as he had left it, except for the picture that no longer adorned the mantel. "Beg pardon, sir," said the lofty attendant who took his overcoat, "your stud's come loose." "I bet the damn thing's going to do that all night," Quin said confidentially. "Say, you haven't got a pin, have you?" "Oh, no, sir, it couldn't be pinned," protested the man in a shocked tone. Quin adjusted it as best he could, took a final look at himself in the mirror, and proceeded downstairs. Arrived in the lower hall, he glanced about him in some perplexity. Not a member of the family was visible, and he looked in vain for a familiar face. In his uncertainty as to his next move, he went back to the pantry and got himself a glass of water. As he was returning to the hall, some one plucked at his sleeve and whispered: "Hello there, Graham!" Turning around, he encountered the gaping mouth of a shining saxophone, behind which beamed the no less shining countenance of Barney McGinness.