But Diane was like that--a flash of fire and then bewildering sweetness.

There was the spot Starrett's glass had struck; there the ancient carven chair in which Diane had mocked his mother; there was red--blood-red in the dying log--and gold.

Blood and gold--they were indissolubly linked one with the other and the demon of the bottle had danced wild dances with each of them.

A mad trio! After all, there was only one beside his mother who had ever understood him--Philip Poynter, his roommate at Yale.

And Philip's lazy voice somehow floated from the fire to-night.
"Carl," he had said, "you've bigger individual problems to solve than any man I know.