"You came because I couldn't do without you, didn't you, dear doctor?"
Again the portiere opened.
"Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Van Rock—Mr. Kennedy Jones—Miss Trevor," announced Blakeman successively.
Mrs. Thayor's fourth dinner party that week had begun.
* * * * *
As the door closed at midnight upon the last guest, Margaret kissed her father and mother good-night and hurried to her room, leaving the two alone. The dinner had been an ordeal to her—never before had she seen her father so absorbed.
"You were very brilliant to-night, were you not?" exclaimed Alice as soon as she and Thayor were alone.
Thayor continued silent, gazing into the library fire, his hands clenched deep in his trousers pockets, his shoulders squared.
"A beautiful dinner," she continued, her voice rising—"the best I have had this season, and yet you sat there like a log."
The man turned sharply—so sharply that the woman at his side gave a start.