Discovering this circumstance by the glimmer through the shadows of Violet’s conspicuously striped black-and-white taffeta, P. Sybarite commented charitably upon their haste.

“If we hurry we might catch up,” suggested Molly Lessing.

“I don’t miss ’em much,” he admitted, without offering to mend the pace.

She laughed softly.

“Are they really in love?”

“George is,” replied P. Sybarite, after taking thought.

“You mean she isn’t?”

“To blush unseen is Violet’s idea of nothing to do—­not, at least, when one is a perfect thirty-eight and possesses a good digestion and an infinite capacity for amusement a la carte.”

“That is to say—?” the girl prompted.

“Violet will marry well, if at all.”

“Not Mr. Bross, then?”

“Nor any other poor man.  I don’t say she doesn’t care for George, but before anything serious comes of it he’ll have to make good use of his Day of Days—­if Kismet ever sends him one.  I hope it will,” P. Sybarite added sincerely.

“You don’t believe—­really—?”

“Just now?  With all my heart!  I’m so full of romantic nonsense I can hardly stick.  Nothing is too incredible for me to believe to-night.  I’m ready to play Hajj the Beggar to any combination of impossibilities Kismet cares to brew in Bagdad-on-the-Hudson!”

Again the girl laughed quietly to his humour.

“And since you’re a true believer, Mr. Sybarite, tell me, what use you would make of your Day of Days?”

“I?  Oh, I—­” Smiling wistfully, he opened deprecatory palms.  “Hard to say....  I’m afraid I should prove a fatuous fool in George’s esteem equally with old Hajj.  I’m sure that, like him, the sunset of my Day would see me proscribed, a price upon my head.”

“But—­why?”

“I’m afraid I’d try to use my power to right old wrongs.”

After a pause, she asked diffidently:  “Your own?”

“Perhaps....  Yes, my own, certainly....  And perhaps another’s, not so old but possibly quite as grievous.”

“Somebody you care for a great deal?”

Thus tardily made to realise into what perils his fancy was leading him, he checked and weighed her question with his answer, gravely judgmatical.

“Perhaps I’d better not say that,” he announced, a grin tempering his temerity; “but I’d go far for a friend, somebody who had been kind to me, and—­ah—­tolerant—­if she were in trouble and could use my services.”

He fancied her glance was quick and sharp and searching; but her voice when she spoke was even and lightly attuned to his whimsical mood.

“Then you’re not even sure she—­your friend—­is in trouble?”

“I’ve an intuition:  she wouldn’t be where she is if she wasn’t.”

Her laughter at this absurdity was delightful; whether with him or at him, it was infectious; he echoed it without misgivings.