“She looks like the mischief!” answered Tom. “Hadn't we better steer over and wait with her? She's the ugliest sight I ever saw!”
“Why, Tom!” cried Polly. “Stop, quickly!”
They hurried to Edith.
“Come dear,” said Polly. “We are going to wait with you until Phil returns. Let's go after a drink. I am so thirsty!”
“Yes, do!” begged Tom, offering his arm. “Let's get out of here until Phil comes.”
There was the opportunity to laugh and walk away, but Edith Carr would not accept it.
“My betrothed left me here,” she said. “Here I shall remain until he returns for me, and then—he will be my betrothed no longer!”
Polly grasped Edith's arm.
“Oh, Edith!” she implored. “Don't make a scene here, and to-night. Edith, this has been the loveliest dance ever given at the club house. Every one is saying so. Edith! Darling, do come! Phil will be back in a second. He can explain! It's only a breath since I saw him go out. I thought he had returned.”
As Polly panted these disjointed ejaculations, Tom Levering began to grow angry on her account.
“He has been gone just long enough to show every one of his guests that he will leave me standing alone, like a neglected fool, for any passing whim of his. Explain! His explanation would sound well! Do you know for whom he caught that moth? It is being sent to a girl he flirted with all last summer. It has just occurred to me that the dress I am wearing is her suggestion. Let him try to explain!”
Speech unloosed the fountain. She stripped off her gloves to free her hands. At that instant the dancers parted to admit Philip. Instinctively they stopped as they approached and with wondering faces walled in Edith and Philip, Polly and Tom.
“Mighty good of you to wait!” cried Philip, his face showing his delight over his success in capturing the Yellow Emperor. “I thought when I heard the music you were going on.”
“How did you think I was going on?” demanded Edith Carr in frigid tones.
“I thought you would step aside and wait a few seconds for me, or dance with Henderson. It was most important to have that moth. It completes a valuable collection for a person who needs the money. Come!”
He held out his arms.
“I 'step aside' for no one!” stormed Edith Carr. “I await no other girl's pleasure! You may 'complete the collection' with that!”
She drew her engagement ring from her finger and reached to place it on one of Philip's outstretched hands. He saw and drew back. Instantly Edith dropped the ring. As it fell, almost instinctively Philip caught it in air. With amazed face he looked closely at Edith Carr. Her distorted features were scarcely recognizable. He held the ring toward her.
“Edith, for the love of mercy, wait until I can explain,” he begged. “Put on your ring and let me tell you how it is.”
“I know perfectly 'how it is,'” she answered. “I never shall wear that ring again.”
“You won't even hear what I have to say? You won't take back your ring?” he cried.
“Never! Your conduct is infamous!”
“Come to think of it,” said Philip deliberately, “it is 'infamous' to cut a girl, who has danced all her life, out of a few measures of a waltz. As for asking forgiveness for so black a sin as picking up a moth, and starting it to a friend who lives by collecting them, I don't see how I could! I have not been gone three minutes by the clock, Edith. Put on your ring and finish the dance like a dear girl.”
He thrust the glittering ruby into her fingers and again held out his arms. She dropped the ring, and it rolled some distance from them. Hart Henderson followed its shining course, and caught it before it was lost.
“You really mean it?” demanded Philip in a voice as cold as hers ever had been.
“You know I mean it!” cried Edith Carr.
“I accept your decision in the presence of these witnesses,” said Philip Ammon. “Where is my father?” The elder Ammon with a distressed face hurried to him. “Father, take my place,” said Philip. “Excuse me to my guests. Ask all my friends to forgive me. I am going away for awhile.”
He turned and walked from the pavilion. As he went Hart Henderson rushed to Edith Carr and forced the ring into her fingers. “Edith, quick. Come, quick!” he implored. “There's just time to catch him. If you let him go that way, he never will return in this world. Remember what I told you.”
“Great prophet! aren't you, Hart?” she sneered. “Who wants him to return? If that ring is thrust upon me again I shall fling it into the lake. Signal the musicians to begin, and dance with me.”
Henderson put the ring into his pocket, and began the dance. He could feel the muscular spasms of the girl in his arms, her face was cold and hard, but her breath burned with the scorch of fever. She finished the dance and all others, taking Phil's numbers with Henderson, who had arrived too late to arrange a programme. She left with the others, merely inclining her head as she passed Ammon's father taking his place, and entered the big touring car for which Henderson had telephoned. She sank limply into a seat and moaned softly.
“Shall I drive awhile in the night air?” asked Henderson.
She nodded. He instructed the chauffeur.
She raised her head in a few seconds. “Hart, I'm going to pieces,” she said. “Won't you put your arm around me a little while?”
Henderson gathered her into his arms and her head fell on his shoulder. “Closer!” she cried.
Henderson held her until his arms were numb, but he did not know it. The tricks of fate are cruel enough, but there scarcely could have been a worse one than that: To care for a woman as he loved Edith Carr and have her given into his arms because she was so numb with misery over her trouble with another man that she did not know or care what she did. Dawn was streaking the east when he spoke to her.
“Edith, it is growing light.”
“Take me home,” she said.
Henderson helped her up the steps and rang the bell.
“Miss Carr is ill,” he said to the footman. “Arouse her maid instantly, and have her prepare something hot as quickly as possible.”
“Edith,” he cried, “just a word. I have been thinking. It isn't too late yet. Take your ring and put it on. I will go find Phil at once and tell him you have, that you are expecting him, and he will come.”
“Think what he said!” she cried. “He accepted my decision as final, 'in the presence of witnesses,' as if it were court. He can return it to me, if I ever wear it again.”
“You think that now, but in a few days you will find that you feel very differently. Living a life of heartache is no joke, and no job for a woman. Put on your ring and send me to tell him to come.”
“No.”
“Edith, there was not a soul who saw that, but sympathized with Phil. It was ridiculous for you to get so angry over a thing which was never intended for the slightest offence, and by no logical reasoning could have been so considered.”
“Do you think that?” she demanded.
“I do!” said Henderson. “If you had laughed and stepped aside an instant, or laughed and stayed where you were, Phil would have been back; or, if he needed punishment in your eyes, to have found me having one of his dances would have been enough. I was waiting. You could have called me with one look. But to publicly do and say what you did, my lady—I know Phil, and I