Oh, she would have been far better for Dan than anything he could find in this mad city, than anything to which in his despair he would go for consolation. She had kept her word, however, to that old man, Mr. Ruggles; she had got out of the business with a fatal result, as far as the boy was concerned. She thought Dan would drift here probably as most Americans on their wild nights do for a part of the time, and she had come to see. She wore a dress of coral pink, tightly fitting, high to her little chin, and seemed herself like a coral strand from neck to toe, clad in the color she affected, and which had become celebrated as the Letty Lane pink. Her feathered hat hid her face, and she was completely shielded as she bent down drawing pictures with her bare finger on the cloth. After a little while she said to Poniotowsky without glancing at him: “If you stare any longer like that, Frederigo, you’ll break your eye-glass. You know how I hate it.” Used as he was to her sharpness, he nevertheless flushed and sat back and looked across the room, where, to their right, protected from them as they were from him by the great door, a young man sat alone. Whether or not he had come to Maxim’s intending to join a congenial party, should he find one, or to choose for a companion some one of the women who, at the entrance of the tall blond boy, stirred and invited him with their raised lorgnons and their smiles, will not be known. Dan Blair was alone, pale as the pictures Letty Lane had drawn on the cloth, and he, too, feasted his eyes on the Gaiety girl. “By Jove!” said the Hungarian under his breath, and she eagerly asked: “What? Whom? Whom do you see?” Turning his back sharply he evaded her question and she did not pursue the idea, and as a physical weakness overwhelmed her, when Poniotowsky after a second said, “Come, _chérie_, for heaven’s sake, let’s go”—she mechanically rose and passed out. Several young men supping together came over eagerly to speak to her and claim acquaintance with the Gaiety girl, and walked along out to the motor. There Letty Lane discovered she had dropped her handkerchief, and sent the prince back for it. As though he had been waiting for the reappearance of Poniotowsky, Dan Blair stood close to the little table which Letty Lane had left, her handkerchief in his hand. As Poniotowsky came up Dan thrust the small trifle of sheer linen into his waistcoat pocket. “I will trouble you for Miss Lane’s handkerchief,” said Poniotowsky, his eyes cold. “You may,” said Dan as quietly, his blue eyes like sparks from a star, “trouble me for hell!” And lifting from the table Poniotowsky’s own half-emptied glass of champagne, the boy flung the contents full in the Hungarian’s face. The wine dashed against Poniotowsky’s lips and in his eyes. Blair laughed out loud, his hands in his pockets. The insult was low and noiseless; the little glass shattered as it fell so softly that with the music its gentle crash was unheard.