dress?"

"I am, indeed."

He was rather startled. The annual dinner of the board of governors of
the City Club and their wives was a most dignified function always. He
was the youngest by far of the men; the women were all frankly dowagers.
They represented the conservative element of the city's social life,
that element which frowned on smartness and did not even recognize the
bizarre. It was old-fashioned, secure in its position, influential, and
slightly tedious.

"There will be plenty in fancy dress."

"Not at the dinner."

"Stodgy old frumps!" was Natalie's comment. "I believe you would rather
break one of the ten commandments than one of the conventions," she
added.

It was when he saw her coming down the staircase in the still empty
clubhouse that he realized the reason for her defiant attitude when she
acknowledged to fancy dress. For she wore a peacock costume of the most
daring sort. Over an orange foundation, eccentric in itself and very
short, was a vivid tunic covered with peacock feathers on gold tissue,
with a sweeping tail behind, and on her head was the towering chest of
a peacock on a gold bandeau. She waved a great peacock fan, also,
and half-way down the stairs she paused and looked down at him, with
half-frightened eyes.

"Do you like it?"

"It is very wonderful," he said, gravely.

He could not hurt her. Her pleasure in it was too naive. It dawned on
him then that Natalie was really a child, a spoiled and wilful child.
And always afterward he tried to remember that, and to judge her
accordingly.

She came down, the upturned wired points of the tunic trembling as
she stepped. When she came closer he saw that she was made up for the
costume ball also, her face frankly rouged, fine lines under her eyes,
her lashes blackened. She looked very lovely and quite unfamiliar. But
he had determined not to spoil her evening, and he continued gravely
smiling.

"You'd better like it, Clay," she said, and took a calculating advantage
of what she considered a softened mood. "It cost a thousand dollars."

She went on past him, toward the room where the florist was still
putting the finishing touches to the flowers on the table. When the
first guests arrived, she came back and took her place near him, and he
was uncomfortably aware of the little start of surprise with which she
burst upon each new arrival, In the old and rather staid surroundings of
the club she looked out of place--oriental, extrav