ike Margaret!

A moment later and the men in khaki were being presented. They had
sprung to their feet at sight of the radiant vision in the doorway,
where for a moment Inez seemed to hesitate. Beautiful she was beyond
question, with the rich, dusky beauty of the passionate South, and they
who gazed upon her marveled not at the lover worship in Dwight's
deep-set eyes--at the pride with which he watched her gracious,
graceful, yet half-appealing and timid acknowledgment of their soldier
homage. They made way for her, and would have it that she should sit
with them as they lingered a few moments over their wine. And then
Farnham, their senior present, raised his glass to her with a word of
soldier compliment and greeting, after the manner of the days of his
forefathers, and they joined in the toast, one and all, and Inez blushed
and beamed upon them, and looked up into her husband's eyes as though
begging that he should speak for her, and sipped just the tiniest ripple
from the brimming glass of champagne. They had not too much time, for
boxes had been reserved for all their party at the Salone Margherita,
and could not--would not Mrs. Dwight and the captain join them? Several
of the ladies from the transport were to be with them, and now it would
be incomplete without Mrs. Dwight. Again the deep, dark, lustrous eyes
sought the husband's face, as though she would say in this, as in
everything, he must decide. The transport was to proceed at dawn. The
_Hohenzollern_ could not be going earlier. How she _would_ shine, this
bird of paradise, among those simply-garbed army women who perforce were
limited to such toilets as could be evolved from the little steamer
trunks. It was Dwight who negatived the project. She would be utterly
overdressed for the place and the occasion, but he based his regrets
upon the long and fatiguing day, the packing that had to be done, the
coming at any moment of their ship. Even now she was announced, said
Jimmy, hastening in. And so the others went their way without the
Dwights and joined their fellow-voyagers in their revel, the merriest
group in all that laughing company, and only once or twice did someone,
some gentle-hearted woman, speak the thought that more than once or
twice occurred to many present: Why should Sandy Ray have withdrawn from
all companionship? Someone said he had returned to the steamer--alone.

It was long after midnight when they came rippling back to the huge bulk
of th