Here Mrs. Page’s party alighted, near three o’clock in the morning. The bar only was open, its white-frocked attendant sleeping behind the counter. This they entered, yawning from their ride. The barkeeper was awakened, peremptorily, and was ordered to prepare what he had for refreshment. With hot beans from the heater, tamales, potato salad, cold cuts, crackers and cheese, he laid a table in a small dining-room. Sully Maxwell undertook all the arrangements, fraternized with the barkeeper, selected beverages, not forgetting ginger ale for the girl from Santa Rosa. Mrs. Page and Frankie Dean, somewhat disheveled, retired, to appear trig and trim and glossy in the gaslight, ready for more gaiety. Granthope, meanwhile, had wandered out upon the veranda to watch the surf dashing on the rocks, to note the yellow gleam from the Point Bonita light, and smell the salt air; to get his courage up, in short, for another round of animation. The instant he returned Mrs. Page went at him. "Now, Frank," she said, "it won’t do to sulk or to flirt with Santa Rosa. What’s got into you, anyway? You must positively do something to amuse us." "Office hours from ten till four," Keith murmured audibly. Frankie Dean turned on him: "They never let you out of your cage at all!" Fernigan, thereat, began an absurd pantomime that half terrified the girl from Santa Rosa. He pretended to be a monkey behind the bars of a cage, eating peanuts—and worse. It was shockingly funny. The company roared, all but Granthope. He was at the point of impatience, but replied with what sounded like ennui: "I’m a bit stale, Violet; you’ll have to excuse me if I’m stupid to-night. I came to be entertained." Frankie Dean looked at him mischievously. "Never mind, Mr. Granthope, she’ll come back." It was obviously no more than a cant phrase, intended for a witticism. Mrs. Page, however, took it up with mock seriousness. "Who’s ’_she_’, now? _I’m_ back in the chorus again! There _was_ a time, Frank—" Her voice was sentimental; she tilted her head and looked at him, under half-closed eyelids, across the table. "I say, Granthope, you ought to publish an illustrated catalogue of ’em. There’s nothing doing for amateurs, nowadays. When women pay five dollars to have their hands held what chance is there for us?" This from Keith, with burlesque emphasis. Mrs. Page would not be diverted. "No, but really, Frank; who _is_ she? I’ve quite lost track of your conquests." "Oh, you know I’m wedded to my art," he said lightly. "Yes, and it’s the art of making love, isn’t it?" "’No further seek his merits to disclose,’" said Keith, and Fernigan added, "’Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode.’" The girl from Santa Rosa looked suddenly bursting with intelligence, recognizing the quotation. She started to finish it, then stopped; her lips moved silently. Granthope smiled.