The little actress was plainly piqued.  She saw, though she did not understand, that Constance was a different kind of plunger from what she had thought at first up at Charmant’s.  Instead of trying to compete with Constance in her field, she redoubled her efforts in her own.  Was Warrington, a live spender, to slip through her grasp for a chance acquaintance?

Another dance.  This time it was Stella and Warrington.  Braden, who had served excellently as a foil to lead Warrington on when he had eyes for no one else, not even Vera, was left severely alone.  Nothing was said, not an action done openly, but Constance, woman-like, could feel the contest in the air.  And she felt just a little quiver when they sat down and Warrington resumed the conversation with her where he had left it.  Even the daring cut of Stella’s gown and the exaggerated proximity of her dainty person had failed this time.

As they chatted gaily, Constance enjoyed her triumph to the full.  Yes, she could see that Stella was violently jealous.  But she intended that she should be.  That was now a part of her plan as it shaped itself in her mind, since she had plunged or, perhaps better, had been dragged into the game.

As the evening wore on and the dancing became more furious, Warrington seemed to catch the spirit of recklessness that was in the very air.  He talked more recklessly, once in a while with a bitterness not aimed at any one in particular, which passed among the others as blase sarcasm of one who had seen much and to whom even the fastest was slow.

But to Constance, as she tried to fathom him, it presented an entirely different interpretation.  For example, she asked herself, why had he been so ready, apparently, to transfer his interest from Stella?  Was it because, having cut loose from the one feminine tie that morally bound him, he no longer felt any restraint in cutting loose from others?  Was it the same spirit that had carried him on in the money game, having cut loose from one financial principle, to let all go and to guide his course as close to the edge of things as he dared?  There had been the same reckless bravado in the way he had urged on the driver of his car in the wild ride of the earlier evening, violating the speed laws yet succeeding in escaping the traffic squad.

Warrington was a plunger.  Yet there was something about him that was different from others she had seen.  Perhaps it was that he had a conscience, even though he had succeeded in detaching himself from it.

And Stella.  There was something different about her, too.  Constance more than once was on the point of revising her estimate of the little actress.  Was she, after all, wholly mercenary in her attitude toward Warrington?  Was he merely a live spender whom she could not afford to lose?  Or was she merely a beautiful, delicate creature caught in the merciless maelstrom of the life into which she had been thrown?  Did she realize the perilous position this all was placing her in?