as an angel, strike deeply at the hearts of other men; he had heard her laugh and talk lightly of the wounds she had made.  Behind the eyes which gazed up at him, dear and sweet as pools of sunlit water, he knew there lay the consuming passion for power, for admiration, for the froth-like pleasures of the life that was swirling about them.  Sincerity was but their mask.  He knew that the beautiful gray eyes lied to him when he saw in them all that he held glorious in womanhood.

He laughed softly to himself as the picture grew in his mind, and he saw Ransom come blundering in through the palms, mopping his red face and chattering inane things to little Miss Meesen.  Ransom was always blundering.  This time his blunder saved Philip.  The passionate words died on his lips; and when Ransom and Miss Meesen turned about in a giggling flutter, he spoke no words of love, but opened up his heart to this girl whom he would have loved if she had been like her eyes.  It was his last hope—­that she would understand him, see with him the emptiness of his life, sympathize with him.

And she had laughed at him!

She had risen to her feet; there had come for an instant a flash like that of fire in her eyes; her voice trembled a little when she spoke.  There was resentment in the poise of her white shoulders as Ransom’s voice came to them in a loud laugh from behind the palms; her red lips showed disdain and anger.  She hated Ransom for breaking in; she despised Philip for allowing the interruption to tear away her triumph.  Her own betrayal of herself was like tonic to Philip.  He laughed joyously when he was alone out in the cool night air.  Ransom never knew why Philip hunted him out and shook his fat hand so warmly at parting.

Philip again felt himself in the fever of that night as he turned from the rock and began picking his way down the side of the ridge toward the Bay.  He found himself wondering what had become of good-natured, dense-headed Ransom, who had all he could do to spend his father’s allowance.  From Ransom his thoughts turned to little Harry Dell, Roscoe, big Dan Philips, and three or four others who had sacrificed their hearts at Miss Brokaw’s feet.  He grimaced as he thought of young Dell, who had worshiped the ground she walked on, and who had gone straight to the devil when she threw him over.  He wondered, too, where Roscoe was.  He knew that Roscoe would have won out if it had not been for the financial crash which took his brokerage firm off its feet and left him a pauper.  He had heard that Roscoe had gone up into British Columbia to recuperate his fortune in Douglas fir.  As for big Dan—­

Philip stumbled over a rock, and rose with a bruised knee.  The shock brought him back to realities, and a few moments later he stood upon the narrow boulder-strewn beach, rubbing his knee and calling himself a fool for allowing the old thoughts to stir him up.  Out there, somewhere, Brokaw and his daughter were coming.  That Miss Brokaw was with her father was a circumstance which was of no importance to him.  At least he told himself so, and set his face toward Churchill.