"You've been twice already," Carroll hinted. "The girl with the blue eyes
sings her first song rather well."

"I think so," Vane agreed with a significant absence of embarrassment.
"In this case a good deal depends on the singing--the interpretation,
isn't it? The thing's on the border, and I've struck places where they'd
have made it gross; but the girl only brought out the mischief. Strikes
me she didn't see there was anything else in it"

"That's curious, considering the crowd she goes about with. Aren't you
cultivating a critical faculty?"

Vane disregarded the ironical question.

"She's Irish; that accounts for a good deal."

He paused and looked thoughtful.

"If I knew how to do it, I'd like to give five or ten dollars to the
child who dances. It must be a tough life, and her mother--the woman
at the piano--looks ill. I wonder whatever brought them to a place
like this?"

"Struck a cold streak at Nanaimo, the storekeeper told me. Anyway, since
we're to start at sunup, I'm staying here." Then he smiled. "Has it
struck you that your attendance in the front seats is liable to
misconception?"

Vane rose without answering and dropped into the canoe. Thrusting her
off, he drove the light craft toward the wharf with vigorous strokes of