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“I hope you laid it on thick about the new picture,” he continued. “You know, we'll need all the publicity we can get.”

“Oh, let’s forget the picture,” returned the star a bit wearily.

The Oceanic was drawing slowly up to the pier, on which a surprisingly meager crowd was waiting. Shelah Fane gazed at the group with interest and some disappointment. She had rather hoped for a vast throng of schoolgirls in white, bearing triumphal leis. But this had happened when she went through before; she could not expect history to repeat itself—and it was, too, only seven in the morning.

“There’s Julie,” she cried suddenly. “There—near the end of the pier. See—she’s waving.” She returned Julie’s signal.

“Who’s that beside her?” Van Horn inquired. “Good lord—it looks like Tarneverro.”

“It is Tarneverro,” Miss Dixon said.

“What’s he doing here?” the leading man wondered.

“Perhaps he’s here because I sent for him,” said Shelah Fane.

A quiet black-garbed maid stood at her side. “What is it, Anna?”

“The customs men, madam. They’re going through everything. You'd better come. They want talking to, it seems.”

“I'll talk to them,” said the star firmly, and followed the maid into her suite.

“Well, what do you know about that?” Van Horn remarked. “She’s sent for that phony fortune-teller to come all the way from Hollywood———”

“What do you mean, phony?” cut in Miss Dixon.