There was fortunately a company assembled for dinner when John Derringham descended to the restaurant and again joined his _fiancee_--who never dined alone if she could help it, and reveled in gay parties for every meal, with plenty of brilliant lights and the chatter of other groups near at hand.

Wherever she went, from Carlsbad to Cairo, in the best restaurant you could always find her amidst her many friends, feasting every night.

And now the party consisted of some of her compatriots, a Russian Prince, and an Italian Marchese.

She looked superbly beautiful; anger had lent a sparkle to her eyes and a flush to her cheeks; no rouge was needed to-night, and she could scintillate to her heart's content.

She flashed words occasionally at John Derringham, and he knew, and was horribly conscious all the time, that once he would have found her most brilliant, but that now it was exactly as when he had looked at the X-ray photograph of his own broken ankle, where the sole thing which made a reality was the skeleton substructure.