Gilmore gave a jerky laugh. "It's nothing, Victor--nothing. Poor night's sleep, that's all." While their friendship was a warm one, it had never reached the point of intimacy; and to no friend on earth would Kirklan Gilmore have confided the truth. "We'll have a cocktail or so before dinner, and that will put new life back into me again." Sarbella felt certain that this was an evasion and a very thin one; through Gilmore's eyes he saw a soul in torment. But he pretended to accept the explanation. "The beautiful new wife, she must not see you so. It will make her unhappy." Gilmore's lips tightened, and he hastily changed the subject. "To-morrow, Victor, we'll dig in and talk over the illustrations you are to make. I have an idea or so, but I'll have to chase along now and dress for dinner. Did Bates tell you? A quarter past six? When you've dressed go on downstairs; we'll have the cocktails on the veranda. I'll be down ahead of you, perhaps; I'm a regular fireman for throwing on my clothes." And he bolted abruptly from the room. Victor Sarbella stared after the closed door and shook his head slowly. "Ah!" he murmured. "A poor night's sleep, he says. I fear it is nothing so simply remedied as that. It was tragedy I saw in his face--tragedy. We all have our tragedies; I, too, have had mine. Poor Andrea; he was so young to die. And our mother----" He blinked back the moisture which flooded his eyes and tossed off the bath robe of silk crape, starting to get into his clothes. Before he had finished, the butler returned with the freshly pressed dinner coat, uttered a few polite banalities, and departed. Sarbella smoked another cigarette and then went downstairs to the veranda, where he found that Gilmore had preceded him, looking a little less pale than some minutes before. But the color in the author's cheeks was plainly artificial, induced no doubt by a nip or so from the bottle of liquor with which he was engaged in mixing the cocktails. The man was making a supreme effort to conceal the true state of his feelings, and being only moderately successful at it. "The ladies will be down in a moment," said Gilmore, moving the cocktail shaker back and forth. "Joan tells me that she saw you when you arrived. Great admirer of your work, Joan; she's tickled to death that you're going to do the drawings for the book. She'll probably help you pick out some of the dramatic high spots; she knows the manuscript forward and backward. Here's my mother now; I hear her coming through the hall." Victor Sarbella turned to greet Mrs. Gilmore, Kirklan's stepmother, whom he had not met before. "Mother, this is Mr. Sarbella. Further introductions are unnecessary, Victor, because she's heard all about you." As Sarbella bowed over her hand, Joan joined them.