This was the version of himself that he conceived to be true and the one he tried to interpret to Bee Whitford when he emerged from the hospital after two days of seclusion and presented himself before her.

It was characteristic of Beatrice that when she looked at his battered face she asked no questions and made no exclamations.  After the first startled glance one might have thought from her expression that he habitually wore one black eye, one swollen lip, one cauliflower ear, and a strip of gauze across his check.

The dark-lashed eyes lifted from him to take on a business-like directness.  She rang for the man.

“Have the runabout brought round at once, Stevens.  I’ll drive myself,” she gave orders.

With the light ease that looked silken strong she swept the car into the Park.  Neither she nor Clay talked.  Both of them knew that an explanation of his appearance was due her and in the meantime neither cared to fence with small talk.  He watched without appearing to do so the slender girl in white at the wheel.  Her motions delighted him.  There was a very winning charm in the softly curving contours of her face, in that flowerlike and precious quality in her personality which lay back of her boyish comradeship.

She drew up to look at some pond lilies, and they talked about them for a moment, after which her direct eyes questioned him frankly.

He painted with a light brush the picture of his adventure into Bohemia.  The details he filled in whimsically, in the picturesque phraseology of the West.  Up stage on his canvas was the figure of the poet in velveteens.  That Son of the Stars he did full justice.  Jerry Durand and Kitty Mason were accessories sketched casually.

Even while her face bubbled with mirth at his story of the improvised tango that had wrecked the Sea Siren, the quick young eyes of the girl were taking in the compelling devil-may-care charm of Lindsay.  Battered though he was, the splendid vigor of the man still showed in a certain tigerish litheness that sore, stiff muscles could not conceal.  No young Greek god’s head could have risen more superbly from the brick-tanned column of his neck than did this bronzed one.

“I gather that Mr. Lindsay of Arizona was among those present,” Beatrice said, smiling.

“I was givin’ the dance,” he agreed, and his gay eyes met hers.

Since she was a woman, one phase of his story needed expansion for Miss Whitford.  She made her comment carelessly while she adjusted the mileage on the speedometer.

“Queer you happened to meet some one you knew down there.  You did say you knew the girl, didn’t you?”

“We were on the same train out of Denver.  I got acquainted with her.”

Miss Whitford asked no more questions.  But Clay could not quite let the matter stand so.  He wanted her to justify him in her mind for what he had done.  Before he knew it he had told her the story of Kitty Mason and Durand.