She noticed a shade of bitterness in his voice for the first time.

He said nothing more, and dropped Gerald's hand almost immediately.

De Forest bent forward and raised it.

"Am I to be defrauded of a good-night, Miss Vernor, simply because it is not my good-by?
_Au revoir_." It seemed to Phebe that he held Gerald's hand an instant longer when she would have withdrawn it, and that she permitted or at least did not resent it, and before releasing it he stooped and touched her fingers lightly with his lips.

"_Au revoir_," he said again.
Halloway turned abruptly to Phebe.