Millicent ignored Bower. She was young enough and pretty enough to feel sure of her ability to deal with him subsequently. Her cornflower blue eyes glittered. They held something of the quiet menace of a crevasse. She had traveled far for revenge, and she did not mean to forego it. Helen, whose second impulse was to kiss her affectionately, with excited clamor of welcome and inquiry, stood rooted to the floor by her friend's strange words. "I--I am so surprised----" she half stammered in an agony of confused doubt; and that was the only lame phrase she could utter during a few trying seconds. Bower frowned. He hated scenes between women. With his first glimpse of Millicent he guessed her errand. For Helen's sake, in the presence of that rabbit-eared crowd, he would not brook the unmerited flood of sarcastic indignation which he knew was trembling on her lips. "Miss Wynton has had an exhausting day," he said coolly. "She must go straight to her room, and rest. You two can meet and talk after dinner." Without further preamble, he took Helen's arm. Millicent barred the way. She did not give place. Again she paid no heed to the man. "I shall not detain you long," she said, looking only at Helen, and speaking in a low clear voice that her stage training rendered audible throughout the large hall. "I only wished to assure myself that what I was told was true. I found it hard to believe, even when I saw your name written up in the hotel. Before I go, let me congratulate you on your conquest--and Mr. Mark Bower on his," she added, with clever pretense of afterthought. Helen continued to stare at her helplessly. Her lips quivered; but they uttered no sound. It was impossible to misunderstand Millicent's object. She meant to wound and insult in the grossest way. Bower dropped Helen's arm, and strode close to the woman who had struck this shrewd blow at him. "I give you this one chance!" he muttered, while his eyes blazed into hers. "Go to your room, or sit down somewhere till I am free. I shall come to you, and put things straight that now seem crooked. You are wrong, horribly wrong, in your suspicions. Wait my explanation, or by all that I hold sacred, you will regret it to your dying hour!" Millicent drew back a little. She conveyed the suggestion that his nearness was offensive to her nostrils. And she laughed, with due semblance of real amusement. "What! Has she made a fool of you too?" she cried bitingly. Then Helen did exactly the thing she ought not to have done. She fainted.