The keynote to the whole place--with its spaciousness of comfort, its shields of Harvard, Yale, and the other colleges, its flags, its palms, its theatrical posters, and its three glowing fireplaces, might be found in the great pedestalled image of the American Eagle, carved in grey stone and set up in the middle of the hall. Stately he stood with outstretched wings, poised and ready to strike; and from one of those wings dangled the blue jacket of some American sailor, while upon the huge bird's head there was perched an American soldier's cowboy hat. It seemed so typical, that mixture of dignity and gaiety! Suddenly a rustle and a buzz went round the hall, then the applause broke out in a storm as of summer rain. Miss Golden van Huysen, the singer, had come quickly through the doors that led from the billiard-room smiling an apology for her absence. Olwen's glance flew back to the platform as her friend stepped forward up to it. There she stood facing all eyes, a vision of white and gold. There she shone, in front of all the illuminating lights. Into that place, already bright, she brought an added radiance as of the June sun on a field of buttercups. Golden was her name; golden her hair, golden the girdle that clipped her, its long ends falling to the hem of her skirt. Olwen looked at the glorious young form, symbolical as that of a goddess on a golden coin. "Isn't she beautiful tonight!" she breathed. Every man in the hall must have agreed with her, and the blue eyes of at least one Englishman there said as much. They were the eyes of Jack Awdas. CHAPTER III RECOVERY OF THE CHARM "One sudden gleam of a face, and my cherished Ideal is real! There moved my miracle, there passed my Fate whom to see is to love." Brunton Stephens. Those eyes of Jack Awdas's had known their business from the start. Wise Mrs. Cartwright, to have known what would happen, even as she sat in that basket-chair in that hotel lounge at Les Pins, all those weeks ago! It had happened instantaneously. The electric flash had not been quicker than the glance that had passed from young eyes to young eyes. Those months ago!... Mrs. Cartwright had left the French hotel the morning after--had left Les Pins and the man she had refused. Her place at table next to Jack Awdas had been given (as she guessed it would be given) to her successor. That goddess-built young American had made friends with everybody, easily and at once. The French families had regarded her as if she'd been a visitant from another planet. Olwen Howel-Jones had been subjugated on the spot. But Jack Awdas from the very first _déjeuner_ had scarcely for a moment left her side. Never before had he seen a girl so frank, yet so apart, so boyish in her unaffected good-fellowship, yet so womanly.