Was she incapable of passion—she who could rouse it to the danger-mark in others? He suspected that he was too gentle with her; but forcefulness brought memories of Mr. Dak. Though she made herself the dearest of companions, he knew that her feeling was no more than intense liking. He had failed to stir her.

Sometimes he thought that out of cowardice she was wilfully preventing herself from loving; sometimes that she was diverting the main stream of her affection in a wrong direction. She could still court separation from him without regret Fluffy had only to raise her finger and all his plans were scattered. Fluffy raised her finger very often now that Horace had left.

He despised himself for feeling jealous of a woman; but he was jealous. Fluffy knew that she was his rival. When they were all three together, she would amuse herself with half-sincere attempts to help him in his battle: “He looks at you so nicely. Why don’t you marry him?” But she robbed him remorselessly of Desire whenever it pleased her fancy. “Oh, these men!” she would sigh, shrugging her pretty shoulders. “Don’t you know, little Desire, that it does them good to keep them guessing?”

While the days slipped by unnumbered, he tried to persuade himself that Desire’s difficulty of winning made her the more worthy of his worship. He often thought of his father’s picture, buried beneath dusty canvasses in the stable at Eden Row. It was like that. He had stumbled into a Garden Enclosed, basking in lethargy, where Love peered in through the locked gate, and all things waited and slumbered. Then came the awakening, shattering in its earnestness.

It was three days before Christmas. The weather had turned to a sparkling coldness. Tall buildings looked like Niagaras of stone, poured from the glistening blueness of the heavens. In Madison Square and Columbus Circle Christmas trees had been set up. New York had a festive atmosphere—almost an atmosphere of childhood. Schools had broken up; streets were animated with laughing faces. Mistletoe and holly were in evidence. At frequent corners a Santa Claus was standing, white-bearded and red-coated, clattering his bell. Broadway and Fifth Avenue were thronged with matin茅e-girls and their escorts. They sprang up like flowers, tripping along gayly, snuggling their cheeks against their furs. Stores were Aladdin’s Caves, where money could make dreams come true. The spendthrift good-nature of the crowds was infectious.

All afternoon he had been shopping with her. “Our first Christmas together,” he kept saying. He invented plan after plan for making the season memorable. “When we’re old married people,” he told her, “we’ll look back. It’ll be something to talk about.”

“Only you mustn’t talk about it before your wife,” she warned him slyly.

“Why not?”

“She won’t like it, naturally. A Joan likes to think she was her Darby’s first and only.”

He drew her arm closer into his, and peeped beneath the brim of her hat, “Well, and wasn’t she?”

“Old stupid.”

Over his cheerfulness, though he tried to dispel it, hung a mist of melancholy. He was reminded of all the Christmases which his father and mother had helped to make glad. If this was the first he had spent with Desire, it was the first he had been absent from them. They would be lonely. His gain in happiness was in proportion to their loss. He felt guilty; it came home to him at every turn that his treatment of them had not been handsome.

Suddenly she bubbled into laughter. “You do look tragic Cheer up.” Perching her chin on her clasped hands, she leant towards him, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“But there is. Is it anything that I’ve said or done? I’m quite willing to apologize. Tell me.” Her voice sank from high spirits till it nearly trembled into tears. “You promised always to be honest” Her hand stole out and caressed his fingers. “Our first Christmas together! Mee-ster Deek, you’re not going to make it sad after—after all our good times together?”

“I’m not making it sad.” He spoke harshly. His tone startled her. She stared at him, puzzled. For the first time he had failed to be long-suffering.

“Perhaps we’d better be going.”

Assuming an air of dignity, she slipped into her jacket and commenced to gather up her furs. Usually they enacted a comedy in which he hurried to her assistance and she made haste to forestall him. Instead, he beckoned for the bill.

“Perhaps we had,” he said shortly.

When the waiter had gone for the change, he began to relent. Fumbling in his breast-pocket, he pulled out the case and placed it on the table.

“I got this for you, not because it cost money, but because I thought you’d like it.”

She did not touch it. “Three days till Christmas. It isn’t time for presents yet.”

“Will you promise to accept it?”

“Why shouldn’t I? It’s a little brooch or somethings isn’t it? Let’s wait till Christmas Eve, anyway—till the day after to-morrow.”

“I want you to see it now.”

The waiter came back with the change. He picked it up without counting it, keeping his eyes on hers. She was fingering the case with increasing curiosity.

“But why now?”

“Because——-” He couldn’t explain to her.

Her face cleared and broke into graciousness. “You are funny. Well, if it means so much to you——” She examined the case first. “Tiffany’s! So that’s what you were doing when you left me—busting yourself? Shall I take just one peek at it?—Give me a smile then to show that we’re still friends—— All right—to please you.”

He twisted on his chair and gazed into the room. The moment while he waited was an agony. He was a prisoner waiting for the jury to give its verdict. All his future hung upon her words.

She gasped. “What a darling! Diamonds! Are they diamonds? They must be since they’re Tiffany’s. But it must have cost—-”

He swung round. Her glance fell. “I can’t take it.”

“You can. You’re going to. Here, let’s try it on—There!”

She fidgeted it round, watching the stones sparkle. She seemed fascinated, and wavered. Then she gathered her will-power: “No, Meester Deek. What kind of a girl d’you think I am?”

She tried to remove it; he stayed her. They sat in silence. It was very much as though they had quarreled—the queerest way to give and receive a present.

He picked up the empty case and slipped it in his pocket “I’ll carry it for you. What’ll we do next? A theatre?”

She glanced down at her green tweed suit. “Not dressy enough. Besides,” she consulted the watch on her wrist, “it’s nine.—Oh, I know; let’s visit Fluffy. We’ll catch her between the acts.”

Fluffy was leading lady in Who Killed Cock Robin? which was playing to crowded houses at The Belshazzar.

At the corner of Forty-second Street and Times Square he held her elbow gingerly to guide her through the traffic; on the further pavement he released it They walked separately. Then something happened which marked an epoch in their relations. Shyly she took his arm; previously it was he who had taken hers. She hugged it to her so that their shoulders came together. “Can’t you guess why I wanted to see Fluffy? I’m dying to show it to her.” Then, in a shamefaced little whisper: “Don’t think I’m ungrateful, Meester Deek. I never could say thanks. People—people who really like me understand.”

They came to The Belshazzar with its blazing sign, branding Janice Audrey on the night in fiery letters. There was something rather magnificent about marching in at the stage-entrance unchallenged. As they turned into the narrow passage which ran up beside the theatre, passers-by would halt to watch them, thinking they had discovered a resemblance in their faces to persons well known in stage-land. Even Teddy felt the thrill of it, though he was loth to own it, for these peeps behind the scenes cost him dearly; they invariably rekindled Desire’s ambitions to be an actress. She would talk of nothing else till midnight. The chances were that the rest of his evening would be spoilt; that was what usually happened if he allowed himself to be coaxed into the lady-peacock’s dressing-room. If the lady herself was before the footlights, he would have to hear Desire talking theatrical shop with her dresser. If she was present, he would have to sit ignored, listening to her accepting the grossest flatteries, till he seemed to himself to have become conspicuous by not joining in the chorus of adoration. In the seductive insincerity of that little nest, with its striped yellow wall-paper, its dressing-table littered with grease-paints, its frothy display of strewn attire, its perfumed atmosphere and its professional acceptance of the feminine form as a fact, he had spent many an unamiable hour.

As they passed the door-keeper, Desire smiled proudly. “We’re visiting Miss Audrey.” The man peered above his paper, recognized her and nodded. She glanced up at Teddy merrily, “Just as if we were members of the company.”

Breaking from him, she ran ahead up the stairs: “You wait here. I’ll let you know if it’s all right.”

In his mind’s eye he followed her. He imagined her flitting along the passage from which the dressing-rooms led off, on whose doors were pinned the names of their temporary occupants. He imagined the faded photographs of forgotten stars, gazing mournfully down on her youth from the walls. At the far end she would pause and tap, listening like an alert little bird for the answer. Then the door would open, and she would vanish. She was showing Fluffy her watch-bracelet now; they were vying with each other in their excited exclamations. He could picture it all.

It seemed to him that she had kept him waiting a long while—a longer time than usual. It might be only his impatience; time always hung heavy without her. Men passed—men who belonged to the management. They looked worried and evidently resented his presence. He returned their resentment, feeling that they were mistaking him for a stage Johnny.

At last he determin............