a detaining hand on his arm.

"Listen," she put in eagerly. "Is there anything any of us could do to
help? Nursing or--or anything?"

MacRae shook his head.

"There is a girl with him," he answered. "Nothing but skilled medical
aid would help him at this stage. He has the flu, and the fever is
burning his life out."

"The flu, did you say?" The young man with the long cigarette lost his
bored air. "Hang it, it isn't very sporting, is it, to expose us--these
ladies--to the infection? I'll say it isn't."

Jack MacRae fixed the young man--and he was not, after all, much younger
than MacRae--with a steady stare in which a smoldering fire glowed. He
bestowed a scrutiny while one might count five, under which the other's
gaze began to shift uneasily. A constrained silence fell in the room.

"I would suggest that you learn how to put on a gas mask," MacRae said
coldly, at last.

Then he walked out. Betty Gower followed him to the door, but he had
asked his question and there was nothing to wait for. He did not even
look back until he reached the cliff. He did not care if they thought
him rude, ill-bred. Then, as he reached the cliff, the joyous jazz broke
out again and shadows of dancing couples flitted by the windows. MacRae
looked once and went on, moody because chance had decreed that he should
fail.