To the sisters it was the entrance into a new world, the world their parents had strayed from and often described to them. Seated in arm-chairs of yellow brocade they surveyed the length of the parlor, a spacious, high-ceilinged apartment, of a prevailing paleness of tint and overhung by crystal chandeliers. The black shoulders of men were thrown out against the white walls delicately touched with a design in gilding. Long mirrors reproduced the figures of women rising from the curving sweep of bright-colored, beruffled trains. A Chinaman, carrying a wide tray of plates and glasses, moved from group to group. Soon several of the black coats had gathered round the chairs of June and Rosamund. The Colonel had to give up his seat, and June could see him talking to men in the doorways or dropping into vacant places beside older women. He kept his eye on them, however. It delighted him to see that their charm was so quickly recognized. Round about him their name buzzed from a knot in a corner, or a group on a sofa. Many of those present had known Beauregard Allen in his short heyday. Almost everybody in the room had heard of his strike near Foleys and sudden translation from poverty to riches. When at length the Colonel saw the chair beside June vacant he crossed the room and dropped into it. He was anxious to hear from her how she was enjoying herself. “Well,” he said, “the old man’s been frozen out for nearly an hour. Didn’t it make you feel conscience-stricken to see me hanging round the doorway looking hungrily at this chair?” “I was dying for that man to go,” she answered. “I did everything but ask him.” “Oh, you sinner!” he said, looking into her dancing eyes. “Where will you go to when you die?” “Where do you think you will?” she asked, grave, but with her dimple faintly suggested. “I’d like to know, because then I can arrange to have just about the same sort of record, and we could go together.” He could not restrain his laughter, and she added in her most caressing tone, “It would be so dreary for you to go to one place and me to be in another.” Before he could answer she had raised her eyes, glanced at the door, and then suddenly flushed, her face disclosing a sort of sudden quick snap into focused attention. “Mr. Barclay,” she said in a low voice. “I didn’t expect to see him to-night.” The Colonel turned his head and saw Jerry Barclay entering the room in the company of a lady and gentleman. Many other people looked at them as they moved to where Mrs. Davenport stood, for they were unquestionably a noticeable trio.