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 liberately implacable this woman could be, and how completely he was in her power.

But presently, Miss Dounay, as if suddenly ashamed of her outburst of feeling over so slight an occasion, broke into radiant smiles, took Rollie by the arm, and led him a few steps in the direction of the door. Her manner was gracious and almost affectionate, proclaiming that at least as long as all went well with her moods, the whole wretched incident was past and forgotten absolutely.

As if to make this emphatically clear, she inquired:

"And when is it that you go out with Mrs. Ellsworth Harrington upon her launch party?"

"With Mrs. Harrington's launch party?" Rollie asked, in a dazed voice, his mind groping as at some elusive memory.

"Yes," the actress replied crisply. "You told me yesterday you were going out to-day with her party for a cruise on the Bay."

"Yesterday!" confessed Rollie dreamily. "By Jove, so I did. But," and as though it made all the difference in the world, "that was yesterday!"

"And isn't to-day to-day?" Miss Dounay asked significantly. "Going to buck up, aren't you?" she continued with intimate friendliness of tone. "You are still to continue as the Amalgamated's social ambassador?"

"Why, of course," the young man replied, although weakly, for after what he had passed through of hope and fear in the past few hours and even the past few minutes, he felt quite unequal to any such prospect as the immediate resumption of his social duties.

But it was a part of the swiftly forming plans of the strong willed woman that he should take them up immediately, and she cleverly recalled his mind to the