"Helen!" she called. "Jim is coming to the dance! Isn’t it delightful?" "It is, indeed," said Helen, opening her door a little and looking through the crack. "You’d better tell him what you’re wearing, because he will never know you." "Oh, yes, indeed! Helen and I are going as a pair of Burmese idols—just gold all over—you know——?" She took the stiff attitude of the wonderful Burmese idol, and threw back her slender hands—"This sort of thing, Jim? Tiny gold bells on our ankles and that wonderful golden filigree head dress." She was in wonderful spirits; she caught his arm and hand and persuaded him into a two-step, humming the air. "You dance nicely, Jim. You can have me whenever you like——" Helen called through the door: "You’re quite mad, Steve! You’ve scarcely time to dress." "Oh, I must run!" she cried, turned to Cleland, audaciously, offered her lips, almost defiantly. "We’re quite safe, Jim, if we can do _this_ so innocently." She laughed. "You adorable boy! Oh, Jim, you’re mine now, and I’ll never let you go away again!" As he went out, he met Grismer, face to face. The blood leaped hotly in his cheeks; Grismer’s golden eyes opened in astonishment: "Cleland! By all the gods!" he said, offering his hand. Cleland took it, looked into Grismer’s handsome face: "How are you, Grismer?" he said pleasantly. And passed on out of the front door. *CHAPTER XVIII* Cleland dined by himself in the lively, crowded café of the Hotel Rochambeau—a sombre, taciturn young man, still upset by his encounter with Grismer, still brooding impotent resentment against what Stephanie had done. Yet, in spite of this the thrill of seeing her again persisted, filling him with subdued excitement. He realized that the pretty, engaging college girl he had left three years ago had developed into an amazingly lovely being with a delicately vigorous and decisive beauty of her own, quite unexpected by him. But there was absolutely no shyness, no awkwardness, no self-consciousness in her undisguised affection for him; the years had neither altered nor subdued her innocent acceptance of their relationship, nor made her less frank, less confident, or less certain of it and of the happy security it meant for both.