ends, but he
had drifted away from them in the crowd. One of them--a girl--had sought
somewhat palpably to keep him near her, and he had responded with some
show of ardour for a time, and then something about her had struck a note
of discord within him and the glamour had faded.

"Little fool!" he murmured to himself. "She'd give me her heart to break
if I'd have it."

And then he laughed in sheer ridicule of his own jaded senses. He
recognized the indifference of satiety. An easy conquest no longer
attracted him.

He began to stroll towards the quay, loitering here and there as if to
give to Fates a chance to keep him if they would. Yes, Sheila Melrose was
a little idiot. Why couldn't she realize that she was but one of the
hundreds with whom he flirted day by day? She was nothing to him but a
pastime--a toy to amuse his wayward mood. He had outgrown his earlier
propensity to break his toys when he had done with them. The sight of a
broken toy revolted him now.

He was impatiently aware that the girl was watching him from the midst of
the shifting crowd. What did she expect, he asked himself irritably? She
knew him. She knew his reputation. Did she imagine herself the sort of
woman to hold a man of his stamp for more than the passing moment? Save
for his title and estates, was he worth the holding?

A group of laughing Italian girls with kerchiefs on their heads
surrounded him suddenly and he became the centre of a shower--a storm--of
_confetti_. His mood changed in a second. He would show her what to
expect! Without an instant's pause he turned upon his assailants, caught
the one nearest to him, snatching her off her feet; and, gripping her
without mercy, he kissed her fierily and shamelessly till she gasped with
delicious fright; then dropped her and seized another.

The girls of Valrosa spoke of the ugly Englishman with bated breath and
shining eyes long after Saltash had gone his unheeding way, for the blood
was hot in his veins before the game was over. If the magic had been slow
to work, its spell was all the more compelling when it gripped him.
Characteristically, he tossed aside all considerations beyond the
gratification of the moment's desire. The sinking fire of youth blazed up
afresh. He would get the utmost out of this last night of revelry.
Wherever he went, a spirit of wild daring, of fevered gaiety, surrounded
him. He was no longer alone, whichever way he turned. Once in his mad
progress he met S