Nodding gayly, young Mr. Dixon wheeled them about, piloting them without more ado in the right direction.
The night’s dance was on at the Tampa Bay Hotel. The strains of a dance number had just died out. Out of the ball-room couples poured into the great lobby of the hotel, rich and fragrant with the plants of the tropics. Doors open on the east and west sides of the lobby allowed a welcome breeze to wander through. Women wore the latest creations from Paris; the black-coated men looked sombre enough beside their more gayly attired ball-room partners. All was life and gayety.
Tom Halstead, who did not boast evening clothes in his wardrobe, had dropped into a chair beside a window in one of the little rooms off the lobby. The breeze had blown the heavy drapery of the window behind his chair, screening him from the gaze of anyone who entered the room—a fact of which the young skipper was not at that moment aware.
Into this room, with quicker step than usual, came a young woman. Into her face had crept lines of pain. She looked like a woman to whom had come a most unwelcome revelation.
At her side, pale and over-anxious, stepped a young man. Yet his face was strongly set, as the face of a man who did not intend to accept defeat easily.
The young woman wheeled abruptly about, looking compassionately at her escort. Then she spoke; it was the voice of Ida Silsbee:
“I can’t tell you how wretched this has made me feel, Mr. Dixon,” she said, in a low voice. “So far, I have given no thought to marriage.”
“Do—do you love anyone else?” he inquired, huskily.
“No,” she answered, promptly. “I am heart-free—utterly so.”