she ran off
down the yellow sands like a modern Atalanta.

"My, but Tony is pretty to-night!" murmured Carlotta to Alan, who
chanced to be standing near her as her friend fluttered by with Dick.
"She looks like a regular flame in that scarlet chiffon. It is awfully
daring, but she is wonderful in it."

"She is always wonderful," muttered Alan moodily, watching the slender,
graceful figure whirl and trip and flash down the floor like a gay poppy
petal caught in the wind.

Carlotta turned. Something in Alan's tone arrested her attention.

"Alan, I believe, it is real with you at last," she said. Up to that
moment she had considered his affair with Tony as merely another of his
many adventures in romance, albeit possibly a slightly more extravagant
one than usual.

"Of course it is real--real as Hell," he retorted. "I'm mad over her,
Carla. I am going to marry her if I have to kill every man in the path to
get to her," savagely.

"I am sorry, Alan. You must see Tony is not for the like of you. You
can't get to her. I wish you wouldn't try."

Dick and Tony passed close to them again. Tony was smiling up at her
partner and he was looking down at her with a gaze that betrayed his
caring. Neither saw Alan and Carlotta. The savage light gleamed brighter
in Alan's green eyes.

"Carlotta, is there anything between them?" he demanded fiercely.

"Nothing definite. He adores her, of course, and she is very fond of him.
She feels as if he sort of belonged to her, I think. You know the story?"

"Tell me."

Briefly Carlotta outlined the tale of how Dick had taken refuge in the
Holiday barn when he had run away from the circus, and how Tony had found
him, sick and exhausted from fatigue, hunger and abuse; how the Holidays
had taken him in and set him on his feet, and Tony had given him her own
middle name of Carson since he had none of his own.

Alan listened intently.

"Did he ever get any clue as to his identity?" he asked as
Carlotta paused.

"Never."

"Has he asked Tony to marry him?"

"I don't think so. I doubt if he ever does, so long as he doesn't know
who he is. He is very proud and sensitive, and has an almost
superstitious veneration for the Holiday tradition. Being a Holiday in
New England is a little like being of royal blood, you know. I don't
believe you will ever have to make a corpse of poor Dick, Alan."

"I don't mind making corpses. I rather think I should enjoy making one of
him. I detest the l