theatre."

"If anything or anybody could make me do that, it would be you," she answered, under cover of the music. "I believe you must be very fascinating, or else I—but never mind—— Now let's stop dancing and you'll show me the ring. I'm engaged for the next—and I can't wait till you and I have another together."

Max took her to sit down at an end of the room uninfested by chaperons. No one at all was there. He had the ring in some pocket, and, by dint of sitting with his "back to the audience," hoped to go through the sacred ceremony without being spied upon. The ring Billie had asked for was a famous blue diamond, of almost as deep a violet as a star-sapphire, and full of strange, rainbow gleams. It had belonged to a celebrated actress who had married an Englishman of title, and on her death it had been advertised for sale. Billie Brookton, who "adored" jewels, and whose birthstone conveniently was the diamond, had been "dying for it." "She was not superstitious," she said, "about dead people's things." Now the blue diamond, with a square emerald on either side, and set in a band of platinum, was hers. She took it between thumb and finger to watch the sparks that came and went, deep under the sea-like surface of blue. As she looked at the ring, Doran looked at her eyelashes.

Never, he thought, could any other woman since the world began have had such eyelashes. They were extraordinarily long and thick, golden brown, and black at the tips. The Omallaha girl who had been to New York thought that Billie Brookton herself had had more to do than heaven in the painting of those curled-up tips. But such a suggestion would have been received with contempt by Max Doran, who at the threshold of twenty-five considered himself a judge of eyelashes. (He was not; nor of a woman's complexion; but believing in himself and in Billie, he was happy.) Miss Brookton had a complexion nearly as white, and it seemed to him—more luminous, more ethereal, than the string of pearls he had given her a month in advance of her birthday. She said it would be her twenty-third, and Max had been incredulous in the nicest way. He would have supposed her to be nineteen at the most, if she had not been so frank.

"Now, if you've looked at the ring enough off your finger, will you let me put it on?" he begged. "I'll make a wish—a good wish: that you shall never grow tired of your bargain. For it is a bargain, isn't it? From the minute this ring is on your finger you're engaged to me."

"What will your beautiful mother say?" asked Billie, hanging back daintily, and doing charming things with her eyelashes.

"Oh, she'll be surprised at first," Max had to admit. "You see, she's so young herself and such a great beauty, it must be hard for her to realize she's got a son who has grown up to be a man. I used to think she was the most exquisite creature on earth, but now——"

His words broke off, and he looked up from the gleaming line of gold-and-black lashes. An orderly had come quickly and almost noiselessly to him. "For you, Lieutenant," the man announced with a salute, holding out a telegram.

"May I?" murmured Doran, and perfunctorily opened the envelope.

Billie went on gazing at the ring. She was faintly annoyed at the delay, for she was anxious to see how the blue diamond would look on her finger, and Max had asked to wish it on. The lights in the stone were so fascinating, however, that for an instant she forgot the interruption. Then, sensitive to all that was dramatic, something in the quality of Max Doran's silence struck her. She felt suddenly surrounded by a chilling atmosphere which seemed to shut her and Max away from the dancers, away from music and life, as if a thick glass case had been let down over them both. She glanced up quickly. No wonder she had felt so cold. Doran's face looked frozen. His eyes were still fixed on the telegram, though there had been time for him to read it over and over again. He was so lost in the news it had brought that he had forgotten even her—forgotten her in the moment when she had been consenting to a formal engagement, she, the illusive, the vainly desired one, run after just to the foot of her unclimbable mountain by the nimblest, the richest, everywhere!

Her small soul was stirred to resentment. She wanted to punish Max Doran for daring to neglect her at such a time, even for a few seconds; but a half-angry, half-frightened study of the dark, absorbed face changed her mood. No man could look like that unless something awful had happened.

What, that was awful, could happen to Max Doran? Why, he could lose all his money!

Billie's heart leaped, and then seemed to fall back heavily in the lovely bosom sheathed like a lily with a film of sparkling dew. Would he ever speak? She could not wait. Besides, it was right to be sympathetic. "Max, what is it—dear Max?" she whispered in the honey-sweet voice of Gaëta in "Girls' Love."

He started, and waked up. "It's my mother. She's been hurt," he said. "My God, I must go at once!"

Almost, Billie sighed out her intense relief in words; but she had just presence of mind and self-control enough to hold them back. Gently she took the telegram from him, and he let her do it. Meanwhile, however, she had slipped the ring on to her own finger—but not the engaged finger. Evidently this was no time for an announcement, or congratulations and sensations. But it was just as well to have the blue diamond safe on one's hand, even if it were the right hand instead of the left.

"'Your mother dangerously injured in motor accident,'" she read. "'Asking to see you. Come without delay. Reeves.'"

"Oh, how very sad!" breathed Billie. "How awful if she should be disfigured! But I do hope not."

Doran did not remember to thank his love for her solicitude. He got up, not frozen now, but a little dazed. It occurred to Billie that he had never looked so handsome, so much a man. She felt that he was gathering himself together. "I'll telephone to Omallaha for a special train to connect with the limited at Chicago," he said. "By the time I can see the Colonel and get off it ought to be ready. Yes, I ought to catch the limited that way. It's awful to leave you like this, but I must. I'll take you to your aunt, and—who's got the next dance with you?"

"Major Naylor," she answered, slightly injured, for not ten minutes ago he had been looking at her card. He ought to have remembered every name on it and in the right order.

"Well, he'll come to you in a minute. Trust him not to lose a second! And—you'll write to me?"

"Of course; you'll wire as soon as you can, how your mother is—and everything? On Monday I shall be back in Chicago."

"I'll wire the moment I can," Max assured her. "You know the address in New York?"

"Oh, yes, everybody knows the beautiful Mrs. Doran's address. I'll write or telegraph every day. My heart will be with you."

He squeezed her hand so desperately that she could have screamed with pain from the pressure of the blue diamond. But with touching self-control she only smiled a strained, sympathetic little smile. And Max had forgotten all about the ring!

"Thank you, my beautiful one, my angel," he said. And Billie's large brown eyes (so effective with her delicate dark brows and rippling yellow hair) gave him a lovely look. She had been called many things by many adoring men, but perhaps never before an "angel." Max Doran was very young, in some ways even younger than his years. "Good-bye," she murmured. "But no—not 'good-bye.' That's a terrible word. Au revoir. You'll come to me when you can, I know. I shall be in Chicago a fortnight. But if you can't leave Mrs. Doran, why, in six weeks I shall be in New York."

"Don't speak of six weeks!" he exclaimed. "It's like six years. I must see you before that. But—my mother is before everything just now."

They bade each other farewell with their eyes. Then he took her to Mrs.