He picked her up. He carried her like no weight at all. And she lay very close against him, her head on his crooked elbow, her arms about his neck. They had left a light burning in the box of a sitting-room. And as he entered there Perry Blair, looking down at her delicately parted lips and faintly fatigue-penciled eyes, breathed deeply once, and smiled. He'd been quickly skeptical; he was certain now. No one who had just twisted an ankle was content and serene as that. And that was when Perry Blair first saw Cecille Manners--first saw her with seeing eyes. He looked down at her and in that instant learned how infinitely precious and flagrantly bold girlhood like hers could be. He carried her to a couch. She lay quiet, her eyes still closed. But when, after a glance at his watch, he would have tried to ascertain the extent of the damage, which he knew was no damage at all, she sprang erect, and flamed at him, and struck his hands aside. "No!" she gasped. "No!" And then she put her hands upon her face. "I didn't twist it." Her very voice was dreary. "I just couldn't face it, that was all. I thought maybe, if you carried me upstairs--if once you felt me in your arms--ugh!" She made a sound, a gesture as of nausea. And yet, after a moment, with surprising steadiness: "Had you just as soon go now? I wish--I wish you'd go." He gave her her wish so quietly that when she looked again she was surprised not to see him still there. In the lower hall he stopped a moment and stood with his head on one side as a man stands who listens. He made as if to climb the stairs again, and shook his head. Holliday came first, and he'd have to hurry. In the box of a sitting-room above Cecille sat and also listened. But she made no move as if to follow. She just half stretched her arms toward the stairway when finally she knew that he was gone. "Oh!" she cried then. "Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, God!" CHAPTER XI POTS AND PANS! The rest tells more quickly by far. A raised, roped platform--two lithe bodies--a pavilion of white faces. Not the first round, nor the second, nor the seventh. The intermission which followed it rather, and a crowd grown strangely silent. Perry Blair went back to his seat at the clang of the bell. Jack English was in his corner, and Hamilton, for he had been unwilling to trust anyone else. And lying back under their hurried, efficient ministrations he looked out upon the banks of faces. They were tense; it was easy to see that, just as it was easy to sense that theirs was no ordinary tension. And he understood what it meant. Word had seeped from tier to tier, spread like a drop of ink in a glass of water, until it had colored the entire mass. Only a very select few were "in the know" of what that eighth round had been planned to develop, yet they somehow had leavened the whole audience with anticipation, by an indefinite word or two.