glances; a face weather-beaten, but not rough, a typical Anglo-Saxon fighting face, but kindly withal; certainly not truculent.  Miss Howland had met young army and navy officers who had aroused in her similar impressions; she had, in fact, no difficulty in defining Merrithew’s type.  He was of the class which does strong things out of the beaten track; men who in the process of civilization have retained some of the wandering or combative or predatory instincts of earlier ages and have been set apart in the scheme of natural selection to fight battles, explore countries, kill wild beasts, navigate waters, to the end that a greater proportion of their fellow men may peaceably advance the interests of commerce, science, the arts, and, other affairs of a humdrum world.

Oddington took Miss Howland in.  At the last moment her father had telephoned from the office he would be late and not to wait for him.  This necessitated a hasty rearrangement of the dinner cards; and Mrs. Van Vleck was further disturbed by the butler, who was batting his eyes fiercely at the cringing second man, token that something had occurred, or more probably had been about to occur, to mar that service which was his pride.

Dan, therefore, who sat at her right, finding relief from the rapid-fire conversation which she had directed at him, obviously with intention to put him at his ease, found time to glance up and down the table.  There were perhaps a dozen persons, and he recognized most of them as members of the Veiled Ladye’s party.  Reginald Wotherspoon, upon dry land once more, out of danger, sure of himself, was bantering one of the girls across the table, in the dry, masterful tone of one who fancies he understands women; and the rest were laughing at the confused indignation which marked her replies.

Dan recalled this girl.  She had been especially cool aboard the yacht; and certain pictures of Wotherspoon flashing through his mind, an amused smile lighted his eyes for an instant.  Miss Howland, who at the moment had turned from Oddington, caught the smile, and following his gaze, instinctively divined the cause.  She was not annoyed.  On the contrary, she was pleased, for it indicated to her that Dan was perfectly at ease, and she noted, moreover, that he was dealing with the various courses with a greater degree of savoir faire, so to speak, than she had thought probable.  She dismissed forthwith all fears she had entertained regarding Wotherspoon’s prediction that “among the features of the dinner would be a lifelike imitation of a towboat skipper swallowing his knife.”

He followed Mrs. Van Vleck’s leads in conversation, and once responded with crisp cleverness to a gay remark addressed to him by a girl across the table.  But he seemed to take it for granted that Miss Howland would be occupied with Oddington; and in fact he had spoken to her but once, and then to thank her when she pushed a dish of almonds toward him.