"Oh, it's all right, dad. Here, Killian, please explain things to my father."

Vanderdynk released her hand and picked up the receiver as though it had been a live wire.

"Is that you, Mr. Carr?" he began--stopped short, and stood listening, rigid, bewildered, turning redder and redder as her father's fluency increased. Then, without a word, he hooked up the receiver.

"Is it all right?" she asked calmly. "Was dad--vivacious?"

The young man said: "I'd rather go back into that elevator than go to Tuxedo.... But--I'm going."

"So am I," said Bushwyck Carr's daughter, dropping both hands on her lover's shoulders.... "Was he really very--vivid?"

"Very."

The telephone again rang furiously.

He bent his head; she lifted her face and he kissed her.

After a while the racket of the telephone annoyed them, and they slowly moved away out of hearing.