“Ban!  What the devil—­”

“Work, I tell you.  Next season I may be able to play.  For the present I’m off everything.”

“Have they made you all the editors of The Ledger in one?”

“I’m off The Ledger, too.  Give you all the painful details Wednesday.  Fare-you-well.”

General disgust and wrath pervaded the atmosphere of the polo field when Banneker, making his final appearance on Wednesday, broke the news to Maitland, Densmore, and the others.

“Just as you were beginning to know one end of your stick from the other,” growled the irate team captain.

Banneker played well that afternoon because he played recklessly.  Lack of practice sometimes works out that way; as if luck took charge of a man’s play and carried him through.  Three of the five goals made by the second team fell to his mallet, and he left the field heartily cursed on all sides for his recalcitrancy in throwing himself away on work when the sport of sports called him.  Regretful, yet well pleased with himself, he had his bath, his one, lone drink, and leisurely got into his evening clothes.  Cressey met him at the entry to the guest’s lounge giving on the general dining-room.

“Damned if you’re not a good-lookin’ chap, Ban!” he declared with something like envy in his voice.  “Thinning down a bit gives you a kind of look.  No wonder Mertoun puts in his best licks on your clothes.”

“Which reminds me that I’ve neglected even Mertoun,” smiled Banneker.

“Go ahead in, will you?  I’ve got to bone some feller for a fresh collar.  My cousin’s in there somewhere.  Mrs. Rogerson Lyle from Philadelphia.  She’s a pippin in pink.  Go in and tell on yourself, and order her a cocktail.”

Seeking to follow the vague direction, Banneker turned to the left and entered a dim side room.  No pippin in pink disclosed herself.  But a gracious young figure in black was bending over a table looking at a magazine, the long, free curve of her back turned toward him.  He advanced.  The woman said in a soft voice that shook him to the depths of his soul: 

“Back so soon, Archie?  Want Sis to fix your tie?”

She turned then and said easily:  “Oh, I thought you were my brother....  How do you do, Ban?”

Io held out her hand to him.  He hardly knew whether or not he took it until he felt the close, warm pressure of her fingers.  Never before had he so poignantly realized that innate splendor of femininity that was uniquely hers, a quality more potent than any mere beauty.  Her look met his straight and frankly, but he heard the breath flutter at her lips, and he thought to read in her eyes a question, a hunger, and a delight.  His voice was under rigid control as he said: 

“I didn’t know you were to be here, Mrs. Eyre.”

“I knew that you were,” she retorted.  “And I’m not Mrs. Eyre, please.  I’m Io.”

He shook his head.  “That was in another world.”