more sophisticated gowns did not. Tony wore it for Alan to-night,
wanted him to think her lovely, to love her immensely. She wanted to
taste all life's joy at once, have a perfect deluge of happiness. Youth
must be served.

Alan, graceful for being forgiven so easily, fell in with her mood and
was at his best, courtly, considerate, adoring. He exerted all the
magic of his not inconsiderable charm to make Tony forget that other
unfortunate night when he had appeared in other, less attractive
colors. And Tony was ready enough to forget beneath his worshiping
green eyes and under the spell of his wonderful voice. She meant to
shut out the unwelcome guests of fear and doubt from her heart, let
love alone have sway.

They dined at a gorgeous restaurant in a great hotel. Tony reveled in the
splendor and richness of the setting, delighted in the flawless service,
the perfection of the strange and delectable viands which Alan ordered
for their consumption. Particularly she delighted in Alan himself and the
way he fitted into the richness and luxury. It was his rightful setting.
She could not imagine him in any of the shabby restaurants where she and
Dick had often dined so contentedly. Alan was a born aristocrat,
patrician of the patricians. His looks, his manner, everything about him
betrayed it. Most of all it was revealed in the way the waiters scurried
to do his bidding, bowed obsequiously before him, recognized him as the
authentic master, lord of the purple.

"So Carson really has gone to Mexico," Alan murmured as they dallied over
their salads, looking mostly into each other's eyes.

"Yes, he went yesterday. I hated to have him go. It is awfully
disagreeable and dangerous down there they say. He might get a fever or
get killed or something." Tony absent-mindedly nibbling a piece of roll
already saw Dick in her mind's eye the victim of an assassin's blade.

"No such luck!" thought Alan Massey bitterly. The thought brought a flash
of venom into his eyes which Tony unluckily caught.

"Alan! Why do you hate Dick so? He never did you any harm."

Tony Holiday did not know what outrageous injury Dick had done his
cousin, Alan Massey.

Alan was already suavely master of himself, the venom expunged
from his eyes.

"Why wouldn't I hate him, _Antoinetta mia_? You are half in love
with him."

"I am not," denied Tony indignantly. "He is just like Lar--." She broke
off abruptly, remembering Dick's flare of resentment at