iers in the back row took up the words of Fanny's
song and shouted the refrain she felt swept along on the wings of
success.

At the fall of the curtain Daddy Brown patted her on the back. He was by
this time radiant with cheerfulness once more.

"You will do, young lady," he said. "We'll have to see if we can't work
in a special dance for you;" and Fanny flung her arms round Joan in wild
joy. "You're made, honey," she whispered, "if Brown has noticed you,
you're made. I always said you could dance."

It was very thrilling and exciting, but the champagne was beginning to
lose its effect. The world was growing grey again. Joan's head throbbed,
and she felt self-consciously inclined to make a fool of herself. She
sat very silent through the supper to which Brown treated the company at
his hotel. There were about twenty people present, nearly all men; Joan
wondered where they had been collected from, and she did not quite like
the look of any of them. Fanny was making a great deal of noise, and
how funny and tawdry their faces looked under the bright light. After
supper there was a dance, the table was pushed aside, and someone--Joan
saw with surprise that it was Daddy Brown--pounded away at a one-step on
the piano. Everyone danced, the men, since there were not enough ladies
to go around, with each other.

Fanny, wilder, gayer than ever, skirts held very high, showed off a new
cake-walk in the centre of the room. Her companion, a young,
weak-looking youth, was evidently far from sober, and the more intricate
the step, the more hopelessly did he become entangled with his own feet,
amidst shouts of amusement from the onlookers.

Joan turned presently--she had narrowly escaped being dragged into the
dance by a noisily cheerful gentleman--to find Strachan standing beside
her. He was watching her with some shade of curiosity.

"Why don't you go home?" he suggested; "it isn't amusing you and I can
see you are tired. We get used to these kind of shows after a time."

"I think I will," Joan agreed; "no one will mind if I do, will they?"

"Not they, most of them are incapable of noticing anything." A cynical
smile stirred on his face. "It is no wonder," he commented, "that we are
known as a danger to provincial towns. You see the state of confusion we
reduce the young bloods to." His eyes passed round the room and came
back to Joan with a shade of apology in them. "A bad night, for your
first experience," he said; "we are