The evening was anything but that to which he had looked forward.  From the beginning he regretted coming; before the end it was slow torture for him.  He was out of place and felt more out of place than he was.  Glances at his carelessly purchased clothes were veiled, and never utterly impolite, but he was conscious of them.  He was conspicuous because he was different; outwardly in garb, inwardly in much else.  There was no one here whom he knew; he had never felt that he knew Gloria’s mother, and to-night Gloria’s self, puzzling him, baffling him, was an Unknown.  Not that she was not delightful to him; she was just as delightful to every other man there, and in the same way.  His days with her in the forest blurred and faded.

Gloria gave him the first dance after his arrival, highhandedly commanding a fair-haired and despondent youth to surrender to King one of his numbers.  King caught her into his arms hungrily—­only to feel that she was very far away from him.  He knew that he was dancing awkwardly; he had not danced for a dozen years.  Gloria suggested sitting out the rest of the dance; she said it prettily but he understood.  He understood, too, by that sixth sense of man which is so keen at certain moments of mental distress that all of Gloria’s friends were wondering about him, where he came from, “what his business was.”  He was tanned, rugged.  He was not of them.  He fancied, sensitively, that among themselves they laughed at him.  As he sat with Gloria and found little to say, he was conscious of her eyes probing at him when she thought that he did not see.  He looked away, a shadow in his eyes, and chanced to see Gratton.  Gratton, who had struck him as contemptible in the woods, a misfit and a poor sort of man at best, was here on his own heath.  He carried himself well, he talked well; he bore himself with a certain distinction.  Clearly he was much in favour among the girls and women, much envied by the younger men.  Yes; Gloria was right:  this was another sort of wilderness where Mark King was the misfit, where Gratton was as much in tone with his environment as was King among the forest and crags of the ridges.

Another dance.  Gloria excused herself lightly and escaped into the arms of Gratton himself.  Escaped!  King understood; that was the word for it.  He watched them; saw Gratton whisper something into her ear, saw Gloria toss her head, saw her cheeks flush.  Then Gratton laughed and she laughed with him.  They danced wonderfully together, swaying together like two reeds in the same gentle wind.  Others than King noticed; there were knowing smiles.  At the end of the dance King saw the look which Gloria, flushed and happy, flashed up at Gratton, and his heart contracted in a sudden spasm of pain.

When again couples were seeking each other to the jazzy invitation of the musicians, King slipped away and went outside.  He stood in the shadows of the porch seeking to get a grip on himself.  In a moment he would go in and say good-night to Mrs. Gaynor; he’d say good-night to Gloria; he would go and put an end to a hideous nightmare.  He held himself very much of a fool, and he knew that he was fanciful.  But he was of no mind to stay.