“Sipping here and there,” and a forgivable vanity lightened Warren’s face.  “Gottingen, Warsaw, Jena, Oxford, Milan, The Sorbonne and even at Heidelberg, the jolly old place.  You see my scar?” He pulled back a lock of his wavy black hair from the left temple to show a cut from a student duelist’s sword.  “But you Americans—­I mean, we Americans—­we have such opportunities to pick up the best things from the rest of the world.”

“No, Warren,” and Shirley shook his head, not overlooking the slight break which indicated that his host was a foreigner, despite the quick change.  “I have been to busy wasting time to collect anything but fleeting memories.  Too much polo, swimming, yachting, golfing—­I have fallen into evil ways.  I think your example may reform me.  You must dine with me at my club some day, and give me some hints about making such wonderful purchases.”

“I know the most wonderful antique shop,” Warren began, and just then was interrupted by Shine Taylor and a dizzy blonde person with whom he maxixed through the Hindu draperies, each deftly balancing a champagne glass.

“Here, Reg, you neglect your other guests.  Come on in!” Shine’s companion held out a wine glass to Warren, but her eyes were fixed in a fascinated stare upon Montague Shirley,

“Why, what are you doing here?”

It was little Dolly Marion, Van Cleft’s companion on the fatal automobile ride.  She trembled:  the glass fell to the floor with a tinkly crash.  Shirley smiled indulgently.  Taylor and Warren exchanged looks, but Monty knew that they must by this time be aware of his command to the girl to abstain from gay associations.

“You couldn’t resist the call of the wild, could you, Miss Dolly?”

The girl sheepishly giggled, and danced out of the room, to sink into a chair, wondering what this visitation meant.  Another masculine butterfly pressed more champagne upon her, and in a few moments she had forgotten to worry about anything more important than the laws of gravity.  Warren had been rudely dragged away from his intellectual kinship with his guest.  His manner changed, almost indefinably, but Shirley understood.  He looked at Helene, a little bundle of sleepy sweetness in the big chair.

“Well, Miss!  Where did you go when I left you on my call of condolence to Howard Van Cleft?  He leaves town to-night for a trip on his yacht, and it was my last chance to say good-bye.”

“Where is he going?” was Warren’s lapsus linguae, at this bit of news.

“Down to the Gulf, I believe.  Do you know him, Warren?  Nice chap.  Too bad about his father’s sudden death from heart failure, wasn’t it?  He told me they were putting in supplies for a two months’ cruise and would not be able to sail before three in the morning.”

“I don’t know Van Cleft,” was Warren’s guarded reply.  “Of course, I read of his sad loss.  But he is so rich now that he can wipe out his grief with a change of scene and part of the inheritance.  It’s being done in society, these days.”