A key rattled in the lock; she sprang to her feet and went toward the door. Helen came in, and she saw Grayson and Grismer standing in the hallway. "Come in everybody!" she cried. "Shall we all have breakfast before we part? Don’t you think it would be delightful, Phil? Don’t you, Oswald? And you know we could take up the rugs and dance while the coffee is boiling. Wait! I’ll turn on the music-box!——" Helen and Grayson deliberately began a tango; Grismer came over to where Cleland was standing: "They’re still dancing in the Garden," he said pleasantly. "Did you and Stephanie get enough of it?" *CHAPTER XX* Cleland, being young, required sleep, and it was not until noon that he awoke. Cool-headed retrospection during tubbing and dressing increased his astonishment at the manner in which he had spent his first day in New York after the years of absence. For into that one day had been crowded a whole gamut of experience and of sensations that seemed incredible when he thought them over. Every emotion that a young man could experience seemed to have been called into play during that bewildering day and night—curiosity, resentment, apprehension, anger, jealousy, love, passion. And their swift and unexpected sequence had confused him, wrought him up to a pitch of excitement which set every nerve on edge. He could not comprehend what had happened, what he had experienced and said and done as he stood at his window looking out into the sunshine of the quiet street; and yet, just around the corner the girl who was the cause and reason of it all lay still asleep, in all probability. Breakfast was served in his room and he ate it with a perfectly healthy appetite. Then he lighted a cigarette and walked to the window again to stare silently put across the sunny street and marshall his thoughts into some semblance of order. The aromatic smoke from his cigarette curled against the window pane and he gazed absently through it at the vague phantom of a girl’s face which memory evoked unbidden. What had happened? Was it really love? Was it anger, wounded amour-propre, jealousy? Was it resentment and disgust at the silly, meaningless thing that one whom he had considered as his own kinswoman had done in his absence? Was it a determination to tear her loose that had started the thing—an unreasoning, impulsive attempt at vengeance, born of hurt pride that incited him to get her back? For the bond between her and Grismer seemed to him intolerable, hateful—a thing he would not endure if he could shatter it.