"That was mighty good of you; you saved my life!" said Keith to him,
gratefully, as they walked up the street.

"You couldn't have that tribe of wild Indians descending on your wife,"
said Sansome. He had kept pace with, the others, but showed it not at all.
Sansome was a slender, languid, bored, quiet sort of person, exceedingly
well dressed in the height of fashion, speaking with a slight, well-bred
drawl, given to looking rather superciliously from beneath his fine
eyelashes, almost too good looking. He liked, or pretended he liked, to
view life from the discriminating spectator's standpoint; and remained
unstirred by stirring events. He prided himself on the delicacy of his
social tact. In the natural course of evolution he would probably never
marry, and would become in time an "old beau," haunting ballrooms with
reminiscences of old-time belles.

Keith, meeting the open air, began to feel his exhilaration.

"What I need is my head under a pump for about ten seconds," he told
Sansome frankly. "Lord! It was just about time I got away."

Arrived at the hotel, Sansome said good-bye, but Keith would have none of
it.

"No, no!" he cried. "You must come in, now you've come so far! I want you
to meet my wife; she'll be delighted!"

And Sansome, whose celebrated social tact had been slightly obscured by his
potations, finally consented. Truth to tell, it would have been a little