“How is your father, Derry?”

“Better, Drusilla.  He has a fine nurse.  Dr. McKenzie sent her.”

“And I have Emily,” Jean sang from the corner of the big car where Derry had her penned in, with the fragrance of her violets sweeping over him as he sat next to her.  “I want Emily always, but Daddy has to have a nurse in the office, and Emily won’t give up her toys.  And in the meantime Hilda and I are ready to scratch each other’s eyes out.  Please keep her as long as you can on your father’s case, Mr. Drake.”

“Say ‘Derry,’” he commanded under cover of the light laughter of the women.

“Not before—–­everybody—­”

“Whisper it, then.”

“Derry, Derry.”

His pulses pounded.  During the rest of the drive, he spoke to his other guests and seemed to listen, but he heard nothing—­nothing but the whisper of that beloved voice.

As Derry had said, all the world of Washington was at the ball.  The President and his wife in a flag-draped box, she in black with a turquoise fan, he towering a little above her, more than President in these autocratic days of war.  They looked down on men in the uniforms of the battling world—­Scot and Briton and Gaul—­in plaid and khaki and horizon blue—.

They looked down on women knitting.

Mrs. Witherspoon and a party of young people sat in a box adjoining Derry’s.  Ralph was there and Alma Drew, and Alma was more than ever lovely in gold-embroidered tulle.

Ralph knew what had happened when he saw Jean dancing with Derry.  There was no mistaking the soft raptures of the youthful pair.  In the days to come Ralph was to suffer wounds, but none to tear his heart like this.  And so when he danced with Jean a little later he did not spare her.

“A man with money always gets what he wants.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.  You are going to marry Derry Drake.”

She shrank at this.  She had in her meetings with Derry never looked beyond the bliss of the moment.  To have Ralph’s rough fingers tearing at the veil of her future was revolting.

She breathed quickly.  “I shan’t dance with you, if you speak of it again.”

“You shall dance with me,” grimly, “this moment is my own—­”

She was like wax in his strong arms.  “Oh, how dare you.”  She was cold with auger.  “I want to stop.”

“And I could dance forever.  That’s the irony of it—­that I cannot make you.  But if I had Drake’s money, I’d make you.”

“Do you think it is his money?”

“Perhaps not.  But the world will think it.”

“If—­if he wanted me, I’d marry him if he were a beggar in the streets.”

“Has it gone as far as that?  But you wouldn’t marry a beggar.  A troubadour beneath your balcony, yes.  But not a beggar.  You’d want him silken and blond and singing, and staying at home while other men fought—­”