ensation of treacherous ground eager
to swallow him.

"Are you going to run and tell them," he asked, softly, "as you did your
father last summer?"

She crossed the threshold of the ballroom. He watched her while she
hesitated for a moment, seeking feverishly someone in the brilliant,
complacent crowd.

XVI

George watched Sylvia, fighting his instinct to call out a command that
she should keep secret forever what he had told her. It was intolerable
to stand helpless, to realize that on her sudden decision his future
depended. Did she seek her mother, or Lambert, who would understand
everything at the first word? Nevertheless, he preferred she should go
to Lambert, because he could forecast too easily the alternative--Mrs.
Planter's emotionless summoning of Betty and her mother; perhaps of
Goodhue or Wandel or Dalrymple; the brutal advertisement of just what he
was to all the people he knew, to all the people he wanted to know. That
might mean the close of Betty's friendliness, the destruction of the
fine confidence that had developed between him and Goodhue, a violent
reorganization of all his plans. He gathered strength from a warm
realization that with Squibs and Mrs. Squibs Sylvia couldn't possibly
hurt him.

He became ashamed of his misgivings, aware that for nothing in the
world, even if he had the power, would he rearrange the last five
minutes.

He saw her brilliant figure start forward and take an uneven course
around the edge of the room until a man caught her and swung her out
among the dancers. George turned away. He was sorry it was Wandel who
had interfered, but that would give her time to reflect; and even if she
blurted it out to Wandel, the little man might be decent enough to
advise her to keep quiet.

George wandered restlessly across the hall to the smoking-room. How long
would the music lilt on, imprisoning Sylvia in the grasp of Wandel or
another man?

He asked for a glass of water, and took it to a lounge in front of the
fire. Here he sat, listening to the rollicking music, to the softer
harmonies of feminine voices that seemed to define for him compelling
and pleasurable vistas down which he might no longer glance. When the
silence came Sylvia would go to her mother or Lambert.

"My very dear--George."

Lambert himself bent over the back of the lounge. George guessed the
other had seen him enter and had followed. All the better, even if he
had come to attack. George had things to