"He is tired. You must excuse him. He is usually so nice to you, you know." "Ah, si, si!" Anne proceeded slowly up the stairs. So she would have to cope with a mood! Ennui surged over her. In that moment she understood fully the weary distaste of a man who has to deal with a hysterical woman. Oh, why was Alexis so temperamental? She shrugged, and turning the knob of the sitting room door, entered. Apparently unoccupied, the only light came from the cheerful fire which chuckling upon the hearth like a contented hen, lent an amber glow to the paneled walls where Sargent's portrait of Anne's mother smiled gently in its antiquated garb. Anne pressed her finger on the electric button by the door. A golden stream flooded the shadowy corners. Upon a sofa at the extreme end of the room lay Alexis. At her approach, he drew an audible, almost sobbing breath, and sat up and faced her. The thick hair rumpled into a comb over knotted brows, his eyes were somber. "Where have you been? I thought you would never come!" He walked swiftly towards her. As Anne heard the stricken note in his voice, her heart melted into a pool of tears. She ran forward and encircled him with her arms, as one would a sorrowful child. "I didn't think you would be here so soon," she exclaimed contritely. "I imagined there would be a swarm of people waiting to fall upon you with congratulations. Was I wrong?" He trembled beneath her hold. She released him with a weary little sigh. Her doubt had evidently ruffled his vanity. "Of course there was a crowd. But I only spoke to a few personal friends, and one or two reporters. Rosenfield told the rest I was too exhausted to speak to them, which, was a lie, God knows, for I never felt less tired in all my life. You see, I was thinking of you and this meeting." He laughed loudly. She ignored his angry eyes with a feeling of guilt. "But Alexis, what a triumph! How proud you have made me!" She caressed his shoulders with gentle hands. He flung himself from her hold. "Then why, if you are so proud and happy, have you kept me waiting while you go motoring with another man?" A milk-white pallor overspread Anne's cheeks. She flung off her coat and seated herself before the fire. "So that is what is the matter?" In the glow of the flames her hair encircled her face like a brazen nimbus. Alabaster skin shone luminous against the opaque white of the gardenias upon her shoulder. Alexis' gaze bit into her beauty angrily. "Isn't that enough? Isn't it enough that you should leave me to-night for another man? To-night which was mine by right? Desert me for a stranger at the very doors of Carnegie Hall?" The clenched hands became livid. "But Alexis, give me a chance to explain. It was all an accident. Entirely unpremeditated." "An accident! I shouldn't call it exactly that! Who was this man with whom a tête-à-tête was so necessary that you couldn't wait until to-morrow?"