"It is incredible!" she murmured; "she must be perfectly mad to make such an exhibition of herself. Can't anybody stop her? Can't anybody send her home?" Austin said sullenly but distinctly: "The thing for us to do is to get out. . . . Nina--if you are ready--" "But--but what about Gerald?" faltered Eileen, turning piteously to Selwyn. "We can't leave him--there!" The man straightened up and turned his drawn face toward her: "Do you wish me to get him?" "Y-you can't do that--can you?" "Yes, I can; if you wish it. Do you think there is anything in the world I can't do, if you wish it?" As he rose she laid her hand on his arm: "I--I don't ask it--" she began. "You do not have to ask it," he said with a smile almost genuine. "Austin, I'm going to get Gerald--and Nina will explain to you that he's to be left to me if any sermon is required. I'll go back with him in the motor-boat. Boots, you'll drive home in my place." As he turned, still smiling and self-possessed, Eileen whispered rapidly: "Don't go. I care for you too much to ask it." He said under his breath: "Dearest, you cannot understand." "Yes--I do! Don't go. Philip--don't go near--her--" "I must." "If you do--if you go--h-how can you c-care for me as you say you do?--when I ask you not to--when I cannot endure--to--" She turned swiftly and stared across at Alixe; and Alixe, unsteady in the flushed brilliancy of her youthful beauty, half rose in her seat and stared back. Instinctively the young girl's hand tightened on Selwyn's arm: "She--she is beautiful!" she faltered; but he turned and led her from the table, following Austin, his sister, and Lansing; and she clung to him almost convulsively when he halted on the edge of the lawn. "I must go back," he whispered--"dearest--dearest--I must." "T-to Gerald? Or--_her_?" But he only muttered: "They don't know what they're doing. Let me go, Eileen"--gently detaching her fingers, which left her hands lying in both of his. She said, looking up at him: "If you go--if you go--whatever time you return--no matter what hour--knock at my door. Do you promise? I shall be awake. Do you promise?" "Yes," he said with a trace of impatience--the only hint of his anger at the prospect of the duty before him. So she went away with Nina and Austin and Boots; and Selwyn turned back, sauntering quietly toward the table where already the occupants had apparently forgotten him and the episode in the riotous gaiety increasing with the accession of half a dozen more men. When Selwyn approached, Neergard saw him first, stared at him, and snickered; but he greeted everybody with smiling composure, nodding to those he knew--a trifle more formally to Mrs. Ruthven--and, coolly pulling up a chair, seated himself beside Gerald. "Boots has driven home with the others," he said in a low voice; "I'm going back in the motor-boat with you. Don't worry about Austin. Are you ready?"