"Oh, yes; I'm one of 'em--dragging my idleness and viciousness and my stupidity and my money at my heels. I tell you, Kathleen, this is no good. There's a stench of money everywhere; there's a staler aroma in the air, too--the dubious perfume of decadence, of moral atrophy, of stupid recklessness, of the ennui that breeds intrigue! I'm deadly tired of it--of the sort of people I was born among; of their women folk, whose sole intellectual relaxation is in pirouetting along the danger mark without overstepping, and in concealing it when they do; of the overgroomed men who can do nothing except what can be done with money, who think nothing, know nothing, sweat nothing but money and what it can buy--like horses and yachts and prima donnas----" She uttered a shocked exclamation, but he went on: "Yes, prima donnas. Which of our friends was it who bought that pretty one that sang in 'La Esmeralda'?" "Duane!" she exclaimed in consternation; but he took her protesting hands in his and held her powerless. "You happen to be a darling," he said; "but you were not born to this environment. Geraldine was--and she is a darling. God bless her. Outside of my sister, Naida, and you two--with the exception of the newly fledged and as yet mercifully unregurgitated with vicious wisdom--who are all these people? Ciphers, save for their balances at their banks; nameless, save for the noisy reiteration of their hard-fisted forebears' names; without any ambition, except financial and social; without any objective, save the escape from ennui--without any taste, culture, inspiration, except that of physical gratification! Oh, Lord, I'm one of them, but I resign to-night." "Duane, you're quite mad," she said, wrenching her hands free and gazing at him rather fearfully. "I think he's dead sensible," said a calm voice at her elbow; and Scott Seagrave appeared, twirling his mask and blinking at them through his spectacles. Duane laughed: "Of course I am, you old reptile-hunting, butterfly-chasing antediluvian! But, come on; Byzantium is gorging its diamond-swathed girth yonder with salad and champagne; and I'm hungry, even if Kathleen isn't----" "I _am_!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Scott, can't you find Naida and Geraldine? Duane and I will keep a table until you return----" "I'll find them," said Duane; and he walked off among the noisy, laughing groups, his progress greeted uproariously from table to table. He found Naida and Bunbury Gray, and they at once departed for the rendezvous indicated. "Geraldine was here a little while ago," said Gray, "but she walked to the lake with Jack Dysart. My, but she's hitting it up," he added admiringly. "Hitting it up?" repeated Duane. "For a girl who never does, I mean. I imagine that she's a novice with champagne. Champagne and Geraldine make a very fetching combination, I can tell you."