the world like poor Jim when he used to do the Red Avenger."

Susy's voice--and illustration--recalled him to himself.

"Furious I may be," he said with a gentler smile, although his eyes
still glittered, "furious that I have to wait until the one woman I came
to see--the one woman I have not seen for so long, while these puppets
have been nightly dancing before her--can give me a few moments from
them, to talk of the old days."

In his reaction he was quite sincere, although he felt a slight sense
of remorse as he saw the quick, faint color rise, as in those old days,
even through the to-night's powder of her cheek.

"That's like the old Kla'uns," she said, with a slight pressure of his
arm, "but we will not have a chance to speak until later. When they are
nearly all gone, you'll take me to get a little refreshment, and we'll
have a chat in the conservatory. But you must drop that awfully wicked
look and make yourself generally agreeable to those women until then."

It was, perhaps, part of this reaction which enabled him to obey his
hostess' commands with a certain recklessness that, however, seemed
to be in keeping with the previous Satanic reputation he had all
unconsciously achieved. The women listened to the cynical flippancy of
this good-looking soldier with an undisguised admiration which in
turn excited curiosity and envy from his own sex. He saw the whispered
questioning, the lifted eyebrows, scornful shrugging of shoulders--and
knew that the story of his disgrace was in the air. But I fear this
only excited him to further recklessness and triumph. Once he thought he
recognized Miss Faulkner's figure at a distance, and even fancied that
she had been watching him; but he only redoubled his attentions to the
fair woman beside him, and looked no more.

Yet he was glad when the guests began to drop off, the great rooms
thinned, and Susy, appearing on the arm of her husband, coquettishly
reminded him of his promise.

"For I want to talk to you of old times. General Brant," she went on,
turning explanatorily to Boompointer, "married my adopted mother in
California--at Robles, a dear old place where I spent my earliest years.
So, you see, we are sort of relations by marriage," she added, with
delightful naivete.

Hooker's own vainglorious allusion to his relations to the man before
him flashed across Brant's mind, but it left now only a smile on his
lips. He felt he had already become a part of the irrespon