But one day an interruption from the outer world arrived to cast a stain of the matter-of-fact across the fragile fabric of this dream life. It was the first day that he had received permission to sit up in a chair, and the event had been duly celebrated with much gaiety. Lindaberry, in manly vanity, had insisted on taking ten steps alone without the humiliation of feminine support, but on the return trip had been forced to capitulate weakly. Having installed him again in bed, while Clarice had hurried off for luncheon, Dodo was bending over him, supporting his back with one arm, piling up the pillows, when the door opened and Lindaberry's brother entered, followed by Doctor Lampson. "Hello, there, old bruiser!" he began, in a rough welcome in which a note of anxiety was trembling. "You're a nice, brotherly person! Why didn't you send me a telegram?" All at once he stopped, perceiving that Dodo was not in nurse's dress. At the same moment she was seized with a sudden embarrassment. Doctor Lampson, in the background, equally at a loss, waited, rubbing his chin with quick nervous movements. Garry, engrossed in the joy of seeing his brother, did not at once perceive the situation. "By the Lord Harry, Jock, glad to see you! I'm not all in yet, am I? Sat up--walked--" A little movement of Dodo's, stiffening and withdrawing, caught his eye, and recalled him to the necessity of an explanation. He hesitated only a moment, a little unprepared, but that momentary delay hurt her with a sudden swift pain. "Jock, I want you to meet a good angel," he said quickly. He stretched out his hand, taking hers, and turned proudly: "This is Miss Baxter--Dodo. We are engaged to be married." Jock Lindaberry's face at once lost the peculiar undecided stare it had borne. He stepped forward, bending over her hand with a trace of the old-fashioned courtesy that sat so naturally on Garry. But the slight trace of awkwardness which had attended the explanation, a fugitive sensitive thought that Garry had said what he had to save the situation,--out of _noblesse oblige_,--had shocked Doré in her independent soul. She felt a sudden anger at the invalid, at the doctor who was a spectator, and at the brother who had made such an excuse a social necessity. "Mr. Lindaberry is quite wrong!" she said hotly. "And his explanation is totally uncalled for, whatever his motives! We are not engaged. I have never promised to marry him, and I do not need any such excuse to account for my being here. Mr. Lindaberry and Doctor Lampson both know what my motives are, and I consider them quite honorable enough to need no apology. Good day!" Before she could be prevented, deaf to the entreaties of Lindaberry or the expostulations of his brother, she walked out, in a fine temper. Lindaberry did not understand in the least the motive of her revolt. He rather ascribed it to a refusal on her part to commit herself. The next day, when she came, he stammered out: