he bottom. It was generally
supposed that the afflicted quartette were spending their leisure over
these tubs, for they had retired into as complete an obscurity as their
various callings would permit. Helena told Magdalena that she lived in
terror of their poisoned or perforated bodies being found in the dark
byways of Golden Gate Park; but the youth of the modern civilisation,
while amenable to suffering, thinks highly of himself as a factor in
current history.

Trennahan was not allowed to spend the evening in the smoking-room with
the older men; he must keep himself in sight even while his Helena was
dancing with another. He wandered about with a grim smile on his mouth,
talking occasionally to the older ladies who sat in a corner;
wall-flowers there were none. He wished that Magdalena would take pity
on him, for he was unmercifully bored; but she danced with exasperating
regularity. Occasionally Helena slipped her hand through his arm and
took him out in the garden, purring upon his shoulder and begging him
not to be bored; but she must look at him! If he insisted upon it, she
would not dance. He refused to countenance such a sacrifice, and
protested that he was just beginning to understand the pleasure of
evening parties. Once he did slip away, and was lying, with his coat
off, a cigar between his lips, crosswise on a bed upstairs with Colonel
Belmont and Mr. Washington, when he received a peremptory message to go
downstairs at once. He threw his cigar away, jerked himself into his
coat, and left the room with jeering condolences in his wake. He felt
cross for the moment; but when he reached the hall below he smiled
humorously as he met the protesting eyes of his lady.

"I can't bear to have you out of my sight!" she exclaimed. "It's
horribly selfish, but I feel as if everything were a blank when you are
out of the room."

What could a man do in the face of so much beauty and so much affection,
but to vow to hold up the wall for the rest of the evening?

As he was taking Magdalena to her carriage a little after midnight, she
said to him shyly,--

"I hope you are quite happy."

And he answered with unmistakable fervour, "I am indeed."

Mrs. Yorba was detained by Mrs. Cartright, who was delivering herself of
many words.

"Do you believe that love is everything in life?" Magdalena asked him.

"By no means. Not even to woman, in spite of the poets. It induces
intense concentration for the time, consequently