fight."

It seemed intolerable that tongues should be busy with this talk of
young Drake's cowardice. He had seemed something so much more than
that. And he was a man--with a man's right to leadership. What was
the matter with him?

The night before she had slept little--Derry's voice--Derry's eyes!
She had gone over every word that he had said. She had risen early in
the morning to write in her memory book, and she had drawn a most
entrancing border about the page, with melting strawberry ice, lilies
of France, Cinderella slippers, and red-ink lobsters, rather
nightmarishly intermingled!

He had seemed so fine--so--she fell back on her much overworked word
_wonderful_--her heart had run to meet him, and now--it would have to
run back again. How silly she had been not to see.

After dinner they danced in the Long Room, which was rather famous from
a decorative point of view. It was medieval in effect, with a balcony
and tapestries, and some precious bits of armor. There was a lion-skin
flung over the great chair where Mrs. Witherspoon was enthroned.

Between dances, Jean and Ralph sat on the balcony steps, and talked of
many things which brought the red to Jean's cheeks, and a troubled
light into her eyes.

And it was from the balcony-steps that, as the evening waned, she saw
Derry Drake standing in the great arched doorway.