"Dodo! The Lord be praised! You saved my life! Dinner, theater and a gorgeous cabaret affair afterwards. Vaughan Chandler's coming for me at seven--I promised to get another girl. Every one you know is going. Every one's been asking for you. Swear you'll come?" "Come? You bet I will!" she cried with a great burst of relief, flinging herself frantically in Ida's arms. At eleven o'clock, after dinner and the theater they started in a party of six, hilariously, for Healey's, where a dozen crowds were to congregate for an impromptu cabaret dance. She felt elated, gloriously happy. It seemed to her as if she had regained the mastery of herself again, that the old zest had returned with the incipient flirtation which she had already begun with two irreproachable youths who sought discreetly to touch her hand in the confusion of the bumping ride, or to gaze deep, with ardent soulful messages, into her mocking eyes of cloudy blue. After all, the voluntary exile had served its purpose. It had showed her the stupidity of moping. Life was too short to be taken seriously. Admiration of ten men was better, more exhilarating, more exciting, than ridiculous fancied passions _au serieux_. She was so happy, so brilliantly gay, liberated in spirit, avid for excitement and admiration, that even Vaughan Chandler, Ida's cavalier by rights, watched her with amazed disloyal eyes. Others were before them in the great Jungle Room which had been reserved. From below they heard the barbaric swinging music of stringed instruments, and divined the laughing, swaying, gliding confusion of dancers. Doré, with brilliant eyes and impatient tripping feet, hurried them on, eager to lose herself in the swirling throbbing measures, and the first two persons she saw on entering, were--Lindaberry and Judge Massingale! CHAPTER XVI Massingale did not perceive her entrance. A moment later she was in the arms of one of her escorts, lost in the confusion of the dance. Whirling figures obscured her view. She caught flashes of his erect square-shouldered figure, glimpses of the high forehead and stern gaze, and the next moment she was flinging back a laughing salutation to a suddenly appearing acquaintance flying past her. Whatever happened, she would never look in his direction; he should never know that he existed for her! And still, in the kaleidoscopic hazards of the frantic measure, his face was the only fixed point which a dozen futile shapes strove in vain to obscure. He had his hand on Lindaberry's shoulder, bending over him in animated exhortation; other men, three or four, laughingly provocative or dissuading, were in the group. Then, all at once, an abrupt end, laughter, applause, a quick clearing of the floor, and Massingale, looking across the room, saw her.