"You'll lunch with me, of course," the big fellow said.
Barry's face fell. "I'm beastly sorry, Jock," he returned slowly, "but I've an engagement. I'm booked for luncheon and dinner both."
"Humph! Well, drop in at the yacht club around five, and we'll have a good talk. Yes? Right! Don't forget, now."
He started into the building, but was back in an instant.
"Say," he exclaimed. "There's a dance at Sherry's to-night, and I've got an extra card. Don't start till eleven or so. How about it?"
Barry's mind was made up in a flash. That would give him time for dinner and a call on Miss Rives. His meeting with Hamersley had set stirring within him an intense desire to mingle with his kind, to be one of the passing show, instead of a mere onlooker, no matter how spectacular a part the latter was. He wanted to go to that dance. He would go.
"That hits me all right," he said; "nothing I'd like better."
As he walked on down the street the smile still lingered on his lips. He was thinking of what he had been twenty-four hours before. Already the pain and suffering and sordidness of that phase of his life seemed nebulous and unreal. At times he caught himself wondering if it had not been an amazingly vivid and horrible nightmare.
The wheel of fortune was whirling him higher with every passing moment.
CHAPTER XIV.