"Is it idle to do what you did--and what she did? Oh, if I had only not seen it--if I only didn't know! I never dreamed of such a thing in you. Bunny Gray and I were taking a short cut to the Gray Water to sit out the rest of his dance--and he saw it, too--and he was furious--he must have been--because he's devoted to Sylvia." She made a hopeless gesture and dropped her hand to her side: "What a miserable night it has been for me! It's all spoiled--it's ended.... And I--my courage went.... I've done what I never thought to do again--what I was fighting down to make myself safe enough for you to marry--_you_ to marry!" She laughed, but the mirth rang shockingly false. "You mean that you had one glass of champagne," he said. "Yes, and another with Jack Dysart. I'll have some more presently. Does it concern you?" "I think so, Geraldine." "You are wrong. Neither does what you've been doing concern me--the kind of man you've been--the various phases of degradation you have accomplished----" "What particular species of degradation?" he asked wearily, knowing that Dysart was now bent on his destruction. "Never mind; don't answer, Geraldine," he added, "because there's no use in trying to set myself right; there's no way of doing it. All I can say is that I care absolutely nothing for Sylvia Quest, nor she for me; that I love you; that if I have ever been unworthy of you--as God knows I have--it is a bitterer memory to me than it could ever be to you." "Shall we go back?" she said evenly. "Yes, if you wish." They walked back together in silence; a jolly company claimed them for their table; Geraldine laughingly accepted a glass of champagne, turning her back squarely on Duane. Naida and Kathleen came across. "We waited for you as long as we could," said his pretty sister, smothering a yawn. "I'm horribly sleepy. Duane, it's three o'clock. Would you mind taking me across to the house?" He cast a swift, anxious glance at Geraldine; her vivid colour, the splendour of her eyes, her feverish laughter were ominous. With her were Gray and Sylvia, rather noisy in their gaiety, and the boisterous Pink 'uns, and Jack Dysart, lingering near, the make-up on his face in ghastly contrast to his ashen pallor and his fixed and unvaried grin. "I'm waiting, Duane," said Naida plaintively. So he turned away with her through the woods, where one by one the brilliant lantern flames were dying out, and where already in the east a silvery lustre heralded the coming dawn. * * * * * When he returned, Geraldine was gone. At the house somebody said she had come in with Kathleen, not feeling well. "The trouble with that girl," said a man whom he did not know, "is that she's had too much champagne." "You lie," said Duane quietly. "Is that perfectly plain to you?" For a full minute the young man stood rigid, crimson, glaring at Duane. Then, having the elements of decency in him, he said: