Claire gave a swift, inclusive glance. Yes, it was the same woman who had attempted to beguile a weary audience from its impending repletion; at close range one could not escape the intense redness of her hair or the almost immoral whiteness of the shoulders and arms which she was at such little pains to conceal. "Stillman?" Mrs. Robson was fluttering importantly. "Not the old Rincon Hill family?" "Yes, the old Rincon Hill family," the man replied. Mrs. Robson sat down with preening self-satisfaction. Wearily the daughter dropped into the seat which Mrs. Condor proffered. The name of Ned Stillman was not unfamiliar to any San Franciscan who scanned the social news with even a casual glance, and Claire had a vague remembrance that Mrs. Condor also figured socially, but in a rather more inclusive way than her companion. At all events, it was plain that her mother, with unerring feminine insight, had placed the pair to her satisfaction. Already the elder woman was contriving to let Stillman know something of _her_ antecedents. _She_ was Emily Carrol, also of Rincon Hill, and of course he knew her two sisters--Mrs. Thomas Wynne and Mrs. Edward Finch-Brown! As Stillman returned a smiling assurance to Mrs. Robson's attempts to be impressive, a young woman in white arrived with ice-cream and messy layer-cake. Unconsciously Claire Robson began to smile. She could not have said why, but somehow the presence of Ned Stillman and Mrs. Condor at a table spread with such vacuous delights seemed little short of ridiculous. They did not fit the picture any more than her beetle-browed, red-lipped Serbian who.... She turned deliberately and swept the room with her glance. Of course he had gone. It was not to be expected that _he_ would descend to the level of such puerile feasting. A sudden contempt for everything that only an hour ago seemed so desirable rose within her, and, in answer to the young woman's query as to whether she preferred coffee to ice-cream, she answered with lip-curling aloofness: "Neither, thank you.... I am not hungry." Stillman looked at her searchingly. She returned his gaze without flinching.