onder how long I can carry my chains! They'll
snap some day, and I'll be off, and it will be a long good-bye to the
civilised world."

The girl in the blue dress looked at him with wistful eyes, but she
laughed more gaily than ever, and cried:

"Wait, please, till after the dance on the tenth, and when you _do_ go,
send home things to us, won't you? Shawls and cashmeres, and
embroideries. And pearls! I've always longed to know a real live
pearl-fisher. He ought to remember us, oughtn't he, everybody--because
we've been so kind and patient with his vagaries? We all deserve
something, but bags Me the pearls!"

"Oh, you shall have your pearls right enough," said the handsome man,
but there was a careless tone in his voice which made the promise seem
worthless as sand, and he never glanced in the direction of the girl in
the blue dress.

Pretty, wistful little Norah Boyce looked up quickly as if she were
about to speak; thought better of it, and turned back to stare into the
fire.

The girl seated on the oak stool leaned forward once again, and looked
straight into the face of the handsome man. One white hand rested
against her throat, a slim column of a throat, bare of ornament. Her
fingers moved as though in imagination they were fingering a rope of
pearls.

Buried in the depth of a great arm-chair lay the form of a giant of a
man who had listened to the conversation with a sleepy smile. At this
point a yawn overcame him; he struggled with it, only to find himself
entangled in a second.

"I say," he drawled lazily, "what about bed? Doesn't that strike you as
about the most sensible proposition for the moment? I know this
dissatisfied feeling. No New Year's gathering is complete without it.
Best thing to get to sleep as soon as possible, and start afresh next
day. Things look better after coffee and bacon. What's the use of
grizzling? If we can't have what we want, let us like what we can get.
Eh? It's pretty certain we'll never get what we want."

"Are you so sure of that?" asked a quiet voice. The hostess sat erect
in her seat, her graceful head with its silvering hair silhouetted
against the wall. She looked round the circle of her guests, and
smiled, a fine, delicate smile. "When you make that statement, Frank,
you are contradicting flatly all the premises of modern thought. The
time has passed for sitting still and lamenting the impossible. The
time is past for calling anything impossib