aw of the pompous house on the
dunes and mingle with what Hosack had called the crowd from the hotel.
It was all laughable and petty, but it was what she wanted to do. It
was all in the spirit of "Who Cares?" that she had caught at again. Why
worry as to what Mrs. Hosack might say or Palgrave might feel? Wasn't
she as free as the air to follow her whims without a soul to make a
claim upon her or to hold out a hand to stop?

Through these racing thoughts she heard Palgrave talking and crickets
rasping and frogs croaking and a sudden burst of laughter and talk in
the drawing-room,--and the whistle come again.

"Yes," she said, because yes was as good as any other word. "Well,
Gilbert, dear, if you're not an early bird you will see me again
later,"--and jumped down from the wall.

"Where are you going?"

"Does that matter?"

"Yes, it does. I want you here. I've been waiting all these weeks."

She laughed. "It's a free country," she said, "and you have the right
to indulge in any hobby that amuses you. Au revoir, old thing." And she
spread out her arms like wings and flew to the steps and down to the
beach and away with some one who had sent out a signal.

"That boy," said Palgrave. "I'm to be turned down for a cursed boy! By
God, we'll know about that."

And he followed, seeing red.

He saw them get into a low-lying two-seater built on racing lines,
heard a laugh flutter into the air, watched the tail light sweep round
the drive and become smaller and smaller along the road.

So that was it, was it? He had been relegated to the hangers-on,
reduced to the ranks, put into the position of any one of the number of
extraneous men who hung round this girl-child for a smile and a word!
That was the way he was to be treated, he, Gilbert Palgrave, the
connoisseur, the decorative and hitherto indifferent man who had
refused to be subjected to any form of discipline, who had never, until
Joan had come into his life, allowed any one to put him a single inch
out of his way, who had been triumphantly one-eyed and selfish,--that
was the way he was to be treated by the very girl who had fulfilled his
once wistful hope of making him stand, eager and startled and love-sick
among the chaos of individualism and indolence, who had shaken him into
the Great Emotion! Yes, by God, he'd know about that.

Bare-headed and surging with untranslatable anger he started walking.
He was in no mood to go into the drawing-room and cut into a g