ready when we land. I'll say I'm starved. . . . Ellen, listen. . . ."
Ellen gave up, guiltily. She had done nothing about Di all day and had returned with nothing better than words. Even now she could not consider Di, solely. What Di was doing linked itself with what Jay Rountree was about to do.
She watched Di bedecking her lovely, soft, seductive body with silk gathered close or left loose with Di's instinct to tantalize a man; almost any man. Di was bedecking herself to please Sam Metten to-night; to-morrow night, another man, likely; or even to-night, if it happened that Art Slengel brought with him another than Jello.
Di simply felt no sense of need of inviolateness of her body, no joy of saving it until she could consecrate it in love to one man.
Jay was leaving, to-morrow, to marry Lida Haige, whom he did not love. For some reason, other than love, he would marry Lida Haige, not regarding, not imagining, probably, what it would do to him.
Jay did not dine with his father and the Dills. He decided to go out, indifferent as to his destination except that it would not be Ben's table or an entertainment of other friends. He looked in the heap of invitations for a dance being given that night by some one whom he did not know; finding one, he put the card in his pocket.
Arriving at the door of a strange mansion, he did not produce the card. No one knew him; but it was not neces-
