And upon that, for the moment, she became as serious as he. She
lifted her hand from his shoulder and then set it back more firmly,
so that he should feel the reassurance of its pressure.

"Don't worry," she said, in a low voice and gravely. "I know exactly
what you want me to do."



CHAPTER VI

It was a brave and lustrous banquet; and a noisy one, too, because
there was an orchestra among some plants at one end of the long
dining-room, and after a preliminary stiffness the guests were
impelled to converse--necessarily at the tops of their voices. The
whole company of fifty sat at a great oblong table, improvised for the
occasion by carpenters; but, not betraying itself as an improvisation,
it seemed a permanent continent of damask and lace, with shores of
crystal and silver running up to spreading groves of orchids and
lilies and white roses--an inhabited continent, evidently, for there
were three marvelous, gleaming buildings: one in the center and one
at each end, white miracles wrought by some inspired craftsman in
sculptural icing. They were models in miniature, and they represented
the Sheridan Building, the Sheridan Apartments, and the Pump Works.
Nearly all the guests recognized them without having to be told what
they were, and pronounced the likenesses superb.

The arrangement of the table was visibly baronial. At the head sat
the great Thane, with the flower of his family and of the guests about
him; then on each side came the neighbors of the "old" house, grading