the gymkhana I had fully determined to feign a sudden indisposition and remain. away. But now, of course, I must swallow my sensitiveness and go to the dinner and do a duty which, however necessary and valuable and kindly, would be none the less disagreeable and thankless. There wasn't an element in the entire situation which thrilled or inspired me.

With conclusion thus formed, I jumped into my car and potted about the country for an hour or two, trying to outline a definite course of action. The idea of a public exposé of course occurred. That would be dramatic and generally conclusive. But drama was not in my line, and, besides, it would hurt Dodo unnecessarily, while at the same time giving me unlimited opportunity for playing the fool. Adelia Curzon was out of the question; her husband equally so. The more I thought, the more clear was the realization of how delicate and devious the situation

was.

But I got even a clearer conception as to this when, acting upon sudden decision, I dropped in on my sister and put the problem up to her. Ethel Huntington was a young matron whose pinky porcelain face and bisque statuet figure rather belied her excellent mind and her strong common-sense. She had just arrived from the club and was in the hall, removing her veil, as I entered.

"Where's Jack?" I asked, referring to my brother-in-law.

66

'Hello, Phil!" Ethel gave her attention to winding the veil. "Why," she explained at length, "he stayed at the club, to check up with the gymkhana committee”

"Good. I want to talk to you a moment, Ethel."

She eyed me sharply. "All right, but it mustn't be long, Phil. I have to begin to dress for the Curzons'-and you know how long I take. . . . By the way, why did you buck out so suddenly this afternoon? Nobody blamed you. You're so dreadfully sensitive-"

"That isn't what I want to talk about," I replied, sulkily. "Well?"

So you know that, too, eh?" Her manner was altogether matter-of-fact. As I stared at her a smile rippled over her face. "Come, Phil, you mustn't think you're the only one who can see beyond Hempfield."

"You mean," I managed to say, "that you knew Captain Tragressor was killed?"

me.

"Why, I-I knew it when Jack told Several of the crowd were talking about it. Rather thrilling, isn't it?" I frowned. "Rather! You haven't missed the way Lady Curzon has got her teeth into this thing, of course. Good Heavens! When she finds out!"

"Some one, of course, should tell her," Ethel said. "She is usually so keen about such things that I wonder she didn't know at once. But who's going to tell? Jack says he'd rather be burned at the stake. And I am positive that I should. But some one should certainly say something to the Curzons."

"Don't you worry about that," I declared, stanchly. "I'm going to do it. The only point is, how and when and to whom. The old people are out of the question. I guess it will have to be Dodo-even if she never forgives me.' "Why not Tragressor himself?" suggested Ethel.

"Why"-I gazed at her strangely— "why, I'd never thought of that! Cer

about Tragressor and Dodo-"

VOL. CXXXVI.-No. 813.-45

simply go to Tragressor, tell him we're

all on, and advise him to get a running start while the road is clear. What?"

Ethel nodded. "I should think so, by all means. Now, Phil dear, I must go to dress." She paused on the stairs, smiling impishly down upon me. "Oh, Phil, whatever you do, wait until after the dinner. It's too good to spoil before that."

"Is it?" I brandished my hand at her. "Well, I'm not running a light comedy for your benefit."

As a matter of fact, I couldn't see any comedy in it; and as the time to proceed to the Curzons drew near the closer the whole beastly mess bordered upon tragedy. It would drive Tragressor away, beyond doubt, but where would it drive Dodo, who was high-spirited and proud and sensitive? And where in the seven kingdoms would it drive me?

Despite my sturdy intentions, however, I found no opportunity of having immediate word with the man who called himself Tragressor, even though I arrived a bit early with that purpose in view. Mrs. Curzon was already downstairs-I could hear her giving some final injunctions to the butler; and her husband was in the drawing-room, pawing over the late evening editions. Curzon was a big man with straight, high shoulders and long, slightly bowed, mismated legs, one of those men who seem to be walking in any direction save that in which they are going. Shock-headed, clear-eyed, big-nosed, he was the sort of individual who could not sit in an automobile without making it look like a Ford car if you understand what I mean. But beneath his exterior he had a lot of good stuff. I always got along famously with him.

"Oh, Phil," he said, pressing in his bulging shirt-front, "come on in."

I told him I was looking for Tragressor, and as Curzon suspected he might be somewhere about the grounds, I was on my way to the door when I nearly ran full into a picture which might have appealed to a disinterested person as

rather attractive. The Britisher was descending the stairs, and had nearly reached the bottom when Dodo, on the landing above, coughed playfully to attract his attention. He paused and turned, gazing up at her smiling, she

ant.

looking down, eyes sparkling, face radiHer evening gown was of some soft, flowing, vague sea-green material which set off her perfect arms and shoulders and emphasized the Dresden tints of her complexion and the glory of her gleaming coiffure. It was all so Romeoesque that I dived through an adjoining door into the drawing-room, filled with the conviction that there are some things that mortals-speaking in the sense of the third person-should not look upon.

And somehow there was the conviction that, whatever might happen to this spurious Tragressor, Dodo would never in the wide world look upon me with that expression. Filled with depression, I walked into an alcove and stood staring gloomily out upon the lawn, when a rather forced laugh of Dodo's, punctuating something that Tragressor was saying in his crisp, staccato voice, startled me. While the corner of the alcove shut out view of the door, it was most evident that the two had entered the room carrying on the conversation they had begun in the hall. Dodo's low, clear voice came before I could move into view or make a sound.

"I wonder," she was saying, half playfully, "if you would ask that if you thought I would take it seriously."

Tragressor laughed shortly. "I meant it seriously, Miss Curzon.'

"Be careful. I'm apt to be awfully frank."

"American girls usually are, aren't they?"

"Are they? And this morning you said they were too clever to be frank."

"Touché," he chuckled, and then his voice changed. "But I don't want you to be clever now. I want you to be

Here, of course, were all the easily recognizable preliminaries all that patter of mutual attraction which increases in facility, poignancy, and force from day to day, from week to week, until— given happy circumstances of propinquity, kindred emotion, common impulse the fates join hands and two lives are sealed.

In the tremendous surge of feeling, of indecisive impulses, that swept through my mind their words became a blur. There was, for one thing, the strong urge to run out, waving my arms like one of

Abbey's mural prophets, launching reproach and denunciation upon the head of this cool Rosicrucian as a villain, a charlatan, and a thief.

Why I didn't I can't imagine; certainly I was wrought up to it. But I held back, quivering, trembling, realizing that it was too late to make my presence known and pretend ignorance, even had my mood been adapted for the fine social art of dissembling.

In the end I did absolutely nothing, standing tense with my ears double flapped until it was evident that the arrival of guests had brought an end to their dialogue.

As soon as I could I made my way out of the secluded corner and, working my way to Tragressor's side, touched him on the arm.

"Captain Tragressor," I said, trying to clear my throat of a damnable huskiness, "could I speak to you a moment?"

He regarded me in smiling surprise. "Why, certainly, old fellow!" He glanced about him. "Do you mean privately, or will—”

"I mean privately," I interrupted, grimly. "At least I should thinkwas going to say that I should have thought seclusion would best suit his wishes, considering what I had to impart, but I checked my Sherlockian humor and turned abruptly toward the smoking-room.

"Tragressor," I opened, as we faced each other under a dado frescoed with hunting-prints, "I'm sorry to have to speak to you-" I paused, feeling my

Yet it had to be done, and at once. As I was bracing myself for a cold, pungent statement of fact he walked away a bit.

"All right, old chap; out with it. Let me apologize and then we'll conclude this business over one of Curzon's inimitable cocktails.'

"Tragressor-!" I blazed. But before I could say another word Dodo's voice bore in.

"Oh, Phil, here you are! That was beastly hard luck this afternoon-I mean at the gymkhana. It was all my

fault-"

"It wasn't, Dodo," I replied, glumly, "but it's nice of you to say so.

She eyed me laughingly. Her spirits were radiant. "Don't be a grouch just because you have to take me in to dinner."

"Have I?" I ought to have been enthusiastic, but I wasn't, not a bit.

"Captain Tragressor is going to take mother in," she added.

I couldn't help glancing over my shoulder at the man. His face was absolutely impassive.

'Captain Tragressor and I were talking," I said, too anxious for her to leave to care about rudeness.

"Well," she said, imperiously, "you'll have to wait until later. Dinner's announced and we're all going in."

I nodded to Tragressor, offered Dodo my arm, and escorted her to the dining

room.

I am afraid I was the poorest sort of company as we made our way to the table, my mind filled, as it was, with Tragressor, whose methods of deceit, designed as they were to circumvent not the intellect, but the heart, struck me as a brand-new sort of confidence game.

There were some fourteen guests at table the very best that Hempfield could do, and not unworthy by any American standard, Adelia Curzon to the contrary notwithstanding. It is a speaking commentary upon conditions as they exist in this country, as opposed to those which this woman would erect, that the least eminent person dining was Steve Elliott, a middleaged no-account, who was spending a life of elegant country leisure on the proceeds of a rather magical emollient

which his wife's late father had compiled and promoted.

With the knowledge of something fishy about Tragressor fairly well distributed among those at table, it may be imagined that the atmosphere about the board was vibrant with tensity.

Anything might be said at any time. anything might happen at any time. Never was that subtle shaft, the chance remark, so laden with potential energy; it was always due at any moment and from anybody. And there sat Dodo, blazing with vivacity, and Tragressor, coolly insouciant and well bred and distinguished, and Adelia Curzon, never so grande dame, practically the only ignorant persons in the company, with the exception, of course, of Curzon, who didn't count at the moment, however much he might count later.

Imagine, thus, the effect of some such unconscious jeu d'esprit of the hostess. as her remark to the rector, who seemed bent upon plying Tragressor with questions concerning the war.

"Now, Doctor Brent, you really mustn't. Captain Tragressor simply won't talk war. You've heard, of course, of British modesty." She glanced archly at the man in question, who smiled goodhumoredly.

Of course he wouldn't talk war! We all knew why. The rector manifestly knew why, and, being a stanch upholder of all the convenient and more obvious virtues, was plainly bent upon testing out the rumors he had heard.

"What proportion of time, Captain," he persisted, "do the men at the front spend in the trenches and back of the line?"

Tragressor's brows knitted, and I, not knowing why, leaped in to save him, receiving a grateful nudge from Dodo. "It's ten days in the trenches and thirty days back, isn't it, Tragressor?" I suggested.

He shook his head painfully, and as we watched a change seemed to come over him, so that he was no longer the cool, languid, graceful gallant, but instead a most pathetic figure, which I, at least, found extremely difficult to observe with equanimity.

"I don't know, really, Toler," he said, ignoring the divine. "The fact is that

that I got a beastly shell shock somewhere and-"

"And you're simply not to talk about it," Dodo interrupted, flashing a glance at the rector, a cartoon of whom adorned the hunt-club smoking-room with the rather irreverent caption, "Our Sporting Parson." The girl was flushing vividly. "You know you're remembering oceans more every day, Captain Tragressor."

All ears, of course, caught the proprietary note. But the Englishman with his charming smile averred that he jolly well was catching up on his pastthanks to the most accomplished physician he had yet encountered.

"Catching up" was not bad, I thought, my mind running over the tales-"of most disastrous chances; of moving accident by flood and field; of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach; of being taken by the insolent foe" - wherewith Tragressor had, no doubt, beguiled our fair Desdemona. How paltry my stories of ambulance detail on the French front, wherewith I had originally interested Dodo, must have seemed in the flush of evidence as furnished by a real fighter! But Ethel, nudging me, bore in upon my reverie. She was seated at my left.

"What more convenient pose than aphasia?" she whispered. "I really think, Phil, you'd better get hold of that chap. Affairs are getting a bit too thick for comfort."

So I thought. But there was nothing I could do for the time being but to watch for danger signals and save Dodo, and, yes, Tragressor-who, after all, was my particular meat-from as much annoyance as possible.

As for Tragressor, I had just reached the decision to corral him as soon as we rose from the table and broach the matter in a spirit of easy fellowship, which I fancied would carry me farther than the ten, twent', thirt' tragedy hero whom I had emulated in the original instance, and was settling down to the roast and champagne when a footman advanced to my side.

"There's a telephone call for you, Mr. Toler," he said.

So electric was the atmosphere that almost every one started bolt-upright, as

though in the simple summons were the detonator which would set off this whole situation with a roar. Somehow or other I left the table with the same idea, but I hadn't realized how fanciful my subconscious mind had held the idea to be until, in response to my hello, I heard my father's deep, precise voice rumbling over the wire.

"That you, Phil? I want you to make your excuses and come home at once There's something rather important here. .. No, your mother is quite well. Hurry.'

"What is it, Phil?" My sister's voice trilled with eagerness as I entered the room and approached Mrs. Curzon with the request for my congé.

"Father wants me something that has come up in business, I suppose," I growled to Ethel as I passed her.

She grimaced sympathetically, knowing how I detested finance even under the most favorable conditions, being a literary man by inclination, temperament, and avocation. But I had no real idea he had anything of business moment in mind; it was Saturday night, for one thing, and business problems of acute nature usually run from Monday until Friday afternoon. On the other hand, whatever it was could not be other than of extreme importance, since my punctilious father was the last of all persons unnecessarily to butt in on a formal dinner party.

As I tooled my runabout up to the house I had to turn out for a limousine which occupied a space directly in front of the veranda steps. Visitors, evidently. A moment later I was in the library, confronting a gray-whiskered gentleman of heavy British respectability-and one

of the most interesting young women I

have ever seen.

I am one of those who believe that Du Maurier used to draw some perfectly hideous girls; but sometimes he hit it, and when he did there was nothing whatever to say. He hit it in one or two of his sketches of Trilby. This girl sitting here in our library reminded me of them. She was supple, graceful, finely shouldered, and neither tall nor short. But her level blue-gray eyes, looking out from beneath a brow not too broad, but squarely modeled, her lips inimitably sculped, and her cheeks faintly revealing color, her chestnut hair-these were the dominating features that caught my eyes and held them.

"This, Philip," said my father, gesturing in his stately way, "is Sir Arthur Ballantyne."

I bowed, somewhat enlightened, and yet resentful that my father should have summoned me from a formal dinner on a matter of business; for this, of course, was what it was, Sir Arthur, as I readily recalled, being a banking connection which Toler & Co. had formed soon after the outbreak of the war.

"He is," my father went on, "an old friend of the family of Captain Tragressor, of whom you have spoken so frequently. He, in fact, accompanied the captain to this country." He paused and turned, while I endeavored to force my features into some semblance of polite repose.

"And this, Philip," he went on, "is Miss Ballantyne Captain Tragressor's fiancée. I believe I understood you to that effect, Sir Arthur?"