upture
of his engagement discussed. The ballet on the beach irritated him. He
told himself that he had come to the wrong shop. One day he thought of
joining friends in Canada. The next he thought of joining friends who
had gone abroad. The day after he thought that still he might be
signaled.

In these uncertainties he loitered, annoyed but sober. Since the visit
from Orr he had not touched a drop. Then, it so fell about that one
evening he looked in at a dance at the Casino. Madness was in the air.
The savors of the sea, the tonic of the dip, the stare of the harvest
moon, go to the head, stir the heart, excite the pulse in a manner
really Boccaccian.

Madness is contagious. It seemed particularly catching that night. The
hall was filled, the gallery flushed. On a stage, at the end of the
ballroom, musicians were tossing out in trailing rhythm the sorcery of
"Il Bacio," the invitation of the "Cent Vierges," the muffled riot of
"El Capitan."

To these incentives couples turned. Beneath the gallery where
Annandale stood there was a vision of white arms, bare necks, slender
waists circled by the blackness of men's sleeves. Three hundred girls
and men were waltzing together, interchanging partners, clasping
hands, gazing into each other's eyes.

Behind Annandale a group had gathered. They were talking, yet of what
he did not heed. But, presently, into the conversation filtered the
freshness of another voice.

"I quite believe, you know," the voice was saying, "that a girl who
stops here this summer will stop at nothing next."

At the jest Annandale turned. There, pretty as a peach but rather more
amusing, stood Fanny Price.

"Hamlet!" she exclaimed.

Annandale resembled the Dane as little as he did the devil. He was
fully aware of that. But he was equally aware that he must seem blue.
He straightened himself and smiled. Then at once it occurred to him
that Fanny might be a signal bearer.

"How do you do?" he said. "Don't you want to come and sit on the
terrace? When did you get here?"

"Just now. I am over from Newport. They told me there that I ought to
come in disguise. They call it slumming."

"Yes," Annandale inanely and eagerly replied. Of the little speech he
had caught but one word--Newport.

"Now, if I go with you, will you give me something pink, something
with raspberries in it?"

Fanny, as she spoke, disengaged herself from the people with whom she
had come.

"You saw Sylvia, didn't you?" he