She was close to the building now, and her blue eyes were dancing and her cheeks flushed with laughter. The perfect grace and rhythm of movement could be seen even through the heavy seal cloak, whose sheen changed with each touch of her figure. "Look at the idiots!" cried Overman, excitedly. "So busy stretching their necks to see a woman, there's five piled up on the ice. They're ringing for the ambulance. She's fractured one man's skull, broken another's leg, and, by the pale-faced moon, I believe she's killed one. And you're after me to meet another woman--great Scott, look, she's coming in here!" "Well, she won't hurt you." "I don't know!" Overman made a break to reach his inner office when Gordon seized his arm. "Stop, you fool," he thundered; "it's my wife. She's calling by for me, and you're going to meet her, if I have to knock you down and sit on you." There was no help for it. He heard the rustle of the silk lining of her cloak and she was at the door. She shook Overman's hand heartily, her violet eyes smiling in such a friendly candid way he was at once put at ease. "I am so glad to see you," she said, earnestly. "I've heard Frank speak of you so often and laugh over your college ups and downs. I feel I've known you all my life. And then he says you're such a woman-hater--" "He's a grand liar, Mrs. Gordon," he interrupted, suddenly colouring. "I never said anything of the kind in my life. I'm a great admirer of the fair sex!" "Then you must prove it by coming to dinner with us to-night and admiring me the whole evening." "Nothing could give me greater pleasure," he answered, bowing his big neck with an ease and grace Gordon noted with amazement. When they left, Overman walked to the window and watched them thread their way through the crowd. "Holy Moses and the angels--what a woman!" he said, softly whistling. "By the beard of the prophet, no wonder!" Long after they disappeared he stood, looking without seeing, as if in a dream. CHAPTER XXII A SCARLET FLAME IN THE SKY From the night Overman had taken dinner at the Gramercy Park house he became a constant visitor. For six months he had usually spent two or three evenings each week in his friend's library, rehearsing their boyhood days, discussing new books, art and politics, Socialism and religion. Overman's cynicism had piqued Kate's curiosity and opened new views of things she had accepted as moral finalities.