"I love this sort of thing," she remarked. "People in the mass amuse me. Jack couldn't get away until midnight, but I wouldn't wait for him. I told him it didn't worry me a bit to come without an escort," smoothing away what little embarrassment might linger. The music started up again. The Keiths arose and made their adieux. Mrs. Sherwood looked after them, her bright eyes tender. Mrs. Keith was the only woman who had yet spoken to her. "Isn't she simply stunning?" cried Keith. "She has something about her that makes most of these others look cheap." "She's really wonderfully attractive and distinguished looking," agreed Nan. "If she were only a little less practical--a little softer; more feminine--she'd be a sure-enough man killer. As it is, she needs a little more--you know what I mean--" "More after Mrs. Morrell's fashion," suggested Nan a trifle wickedly. It popped out on the impulse, and the next instant Nan would have given anything if the words had not been said. Keith was arrested in mid-enthusiasm as though by cold water. He checked himself, looked at her sharply, then accepted the pseudo-challenge. "Well, Mrs. Morrell, for all her little vulgarities, impresses you as being a very human sort of person." He felt a sudden and unreasoning anger, possibly because the shot had hit a tender place. "Shall we dance?" he suggested formally. "I'm sorry," replied Nan, "I have this with Mr. Sansome; there he comes." For the first time Keith felt a little irritated at the ubiquitous Sansome; but his sense of justice, while it could not smooth his ruffled feelings, nevertheless made itself heard. "What I need is a drink," he told himself. At the buffet he found a crowd of the non-dancing men, or those who had failed to get the early numbers. Here were many of his acquaintances; among them, to his surprise, he recognized the grim features of Malcolm Neil. All were drinking champagne. Keith joined them. They chaffed him unmercifully about his purchases of clouded titles in water lots, and he answered them in kind, aware of Neil's sardonically humorous eye fixed on him. But at the first bars of the next dance he bolted in search of Mrs. Morrell, with whom, he remembered, he had this number.