I'm awfully sorry, but it was this
way: I was having dinner with some friends and suddenly I seemed to hear
you calling to me. It gave me quite a shock. I thought you might be in
danger, might be needing me."

Joan kept her eyes on Raymond's face. She was trying to overcome the
growing aversion which alarmed her.

"No, I was not calling to you," she said. "I was bidding you
good-bye--really, though I did not know it myself."

"Oh! come now!" Raymond bent forward over his clasped hands; "you are
peeved! Not a bit like the little sport with that line in her hand."

"I--I wish you wouldn't talk like that." Joan frowned. "And I know it
will sound rude--but I--wish you would go."

"You are--surly!" Raymond laughed again, and just then a deep, rumbling
note of thunder followed a vivid flash.

"Come," he went on; "dance for me. There's going to be a devil of a
storm--keep time to it. I'm here--I ask pardon for being here--but you
can't turn me out in the storm. Come, let us have another big memory for
our adventure."

Still Joan sat contemplating the man near her, her hands lightly clasped
on her lap, her slim feet crossed and at ease--little stocking-shod feet
to which Raymond's eyes turned. She had never looked, to Raymond, so
provoking and tempting.

"What's up, really?" he asked, "you're not going to spoil everything by
a silly tantrum, are you?"

Joan hadn't the slightest appearance of temper--she was quite at ease,
apparently, though her heart almost choked her by its beating.

"You have spoiled everything," she said, "not I. You somehow have made
our play end abruptly by coming here. I don't think I ever can play
again. It's like knowing there isn't--any--any Santa Claus; I can't
explain. But something has happened. Something so awful that I cannot
put it into words."

Raymond got up and stood before Joan. He looked down and smiled, and at
that moment she knew that he was not his old self and she knew what had
changed him! And yet with the understanding a deeper emotion swept over
her, one of familiarity. It was like finding someone she had known long
ago in Raymond's place; as if she had lived through this scene before.

She summoned a latent power to deal with the new conditions.

"You pretty little thing!" Raymond whispered, and touched Joan's
shoulder. She got up quickly and moved across the room.

"I always want light when there is a storm," she said, and touched the
switch.

Raymond, in the gla