"Nonsense. Has he anything, tell me?" "Not enough to entertain on. Twenty-five thousand a year, I think." "The impertinence of it!" said the lady. Had her daughter been an heiress a duke would hardly have satisfied her. As things were, or more exactly, since the girl began to grow in beauty she had dreamed for her but one dream--a brilliant match. To Mrs. Price there could be no brilliance if the party of the second part had a dollar less than ten million. "You might have had Loftus," she declared at last. "Where is he, do you know?" "Abroad, I hear." "With that creature?" Mrs. Price in common with many others had heard of Marie Leroy. But though others in hearing had not heeded, Mrs. Price took it as a personal affront. "Then it is your fault," she snarled. "You could have had him if you had wanted. Don't tell me. He was in love with you. I could see it." Fanny was looking at the ocean. A white sail was fainting in the distance. Like it, a hope she had had was fading away. She watched it go. It had been very fair, very dear, more dear and fair than any she had known. But it was going. It was out of reach and now out of sight. She could not beckon to it. "What are you staring at?" Mrs. Price asked. "A sail out there," the girl answered. Then presently mother and daughter passed into an adjoining corridor where they had rooms. CHAPTER IX FANNY CHANGES HER CLOTHES Fanny did not appear that evening. In search of her Annandale prowled vainly around. But on the morrow he ran into her on the beach. It was still as fine as powder. To have found elbow room there a few days previous you would have had to go out to sea. Now, in and on it children were making hillocks and holes. Near them a few groups of older people loitered. But the coryphées that had danced there were migrating. Already the Rockingham, a big hotel which faced the beach, had closed. Sweet-and-twenty was packing her trunk. The morning itself was of the quality which Lowell has catalogued as from the Gulf adrift. In the air was a caress. Fanny, in a frock the color of pale pastel pink, a wide hat in which that color was repeated, her eyes blue as the sea and bluer, added to its charm. As Annandale approached she smiled and gave him a finger. But at once the smile fell from her. With the finger which he had released she pointed at the big hotel. Annandale turned. Other people were turning. Some were running. A child that had been at play in the sand jumped and clapped his hands. About one side of the hotel a sheet of flame was climbing, crackling in and out. A cry of "Fire!" caught up and renewed, mounted in the crystalline air. "Damn!" said Annandale. "If that goes----"