The next moment Frederic passed him and threw open the door with his inevitable “Bravo!” And instantly the music ceased; Marcia started to her feet; the dancer pulled off her mantilla, and the flower dropped from her hair.

“Go on!  Encore!” he laughed.  “My, but you’ve got that cachucha down to a science; bred, though, I guess, in your little Spanish feet.  You’d dance all the sense a man has out of his head.”

“That’s the reason none of us heard the Aquila whistle,” said Marcia, coming forward.  “Beatriz promised to dance to-night, in a marvelous yellow brocade that was her great-grandmother’s, and we were rehearsing; but she looked so like a nun, masquerading, in that gray crepe de Chine, I almost forgot the accompaniment.  Why, Mr. Foster!  How delightful you were able to get home for Christmas.”

“I am fortunate,” he answered, smiling.  “The ice caught me in the Yukon, but I mushed through to Fairbanks and came on to the coast by stage.  I just made the steamer, and she docked alongside the Aquila not fifteen minutes before she sailed.  Mr. Morganstein brought me along to hear my report.”

“I guess we are all glad to have you home for Christmas,” said Elizabeth.

She moved on with her sister to meet the other guests who were trooping into the hall, and Foster found himself taking Mrs. Weatherbee’s hand.  His own shook a little, and suddenly he was unable to say any of the friendly, solicitous things he had found it so easy to express to these other people, after his long absence; only his young eyes, searching her face for any traces of care or anxiety the season may have left, spoke eloquently.  Afterwards, when the greetings were over, and the women trailed away to their rooms, he saw he had forgotten to give her a package which he had carried up from the Aquila, and hurried to overtake her at the foot of the stairs.

“It was brought down by messenger from Vivian Court for you,” he explained, “just as we were casting off, and I took charge of it.  There is a letter, you see, which the clerk has tucked under the string.”

The package was a florist’s carton, wide and deep, with the name Hollywood Gardens printed across the violet cover, but the letter was postmarked Washington, D.C.  “Violets!” she exclaimed softly, “’when violet time is gone.’”

Her whole lithe body seemed to emanate a subdued pleasure, and settling the box, unopened, in the curve of her arm, she started up the staircase.  Foster, looking up, caught the glance she remembered to send from the gallery railing.  Her smile was radiant.

She did not turn on the electric switch when she closed her door; the primrose walls reflected the light from the great plate-glass window, with the effect of candle glow.  She put the box on a table near the casement and laid the letter aside to lift the lid.  The perfume of violets rose in her face like liberated incense.  The box was filled with them; bunches on bunches.  She bent her cheek to feel the cool touch of them; inhaled their fragrance with deep, satisfying breaths.  Presently she found the florist’s envelope and in it Tisdale’s card.  And she read, written under the name in a round, plain woman’s hand, “This is to wish you a Merry Christmas and let you know I have not forgotten the project.”