I don't want to give you too much of the operatives' reports. I tell myself it is not to be expected anybody would have the same absorbing interest that I have in all the ramifications of the case. So I will go on with my story in the ordinary way.

After the catastrophe, it will be remembered, Miss Hamerton and Sadie had gone into the country to a little retreat I chose for them. After a day or two Sadie, seeing that Miss Hamerton could be left alone, would in fact be better alone, returned, and took up her work on the case as has been seen. Later, that is about the first of June, Miss Hamerton was so far recovered as to be able to go to Southampton, and open her cottage for the season. Now, towards the end of the month, I learned that she had come to town for a few days to talk over next season's plans with her manager. All of which was encouraging as far as her health and spirits were concerned. But thinking of my friend Roland, I was not anxious to see her recover too quickly. I had kept my promise to him, and Miss Hamerton was unaware that I was still busy on her case.

I was shy about going to see her. My feeling was, considering her position and mine, that if she wished to keep up the connection she ought to give me some sign. I confess I was a little hurt that I had not received any.

One day as I was returning to the office after lunch I met her strolling up the avenue with Mount. When I caught sight of her the whole street brightened for me with her loveliness. I watched her coming for half a block before she saw me. She seemed well; she had a good colour, and her face was vivacious—more vivacious than it used to be, a little too vivacious. She seemed to have become aware of the necessity of vivacity. When she laughed her eyes were sombre.

She was dressed in a strange bright blue—few women could have carried off that dazzling colour so well, with coral red at her girdle and on her hat. She walked through the crowd with the beautiful unconsciousness that was part of her stage training. The staring, the whispering, the craning of necks neither troubled nor pleased her. Alfred Mount, who was no child in the world, could not quite hide his pride at being seen with her. He, too, was gorgeously arrayed, a little too well-dressed for a man of his age. But I had to grant his youthful air, and good looks.

I raised my hat, and was for keeping on, but she stopped short.

"Are you going to pass me by?" she cried with charming reproachfulness.

I became as proud and conceited as Mount, thus to be singled out by her. Everybody stared at me. Mount's greeting was affable and chilly—like winter sunshine. I fell into step beside them.

"Why haven't you been to see me?" she demanded.

"Why didn't you let me know you were in town?" I countered.

"I didn't like to bother one so busy," she said.

This to me from her! I walked on air.

"How is business, Enderby?" Mount asked in a faintly sneering tone.

"Poor," I said calmly. "Everybody appears to be behaving themselves."

"Ah!" said he.

"What stories he could tell us if he would!" my dear lady said admiringly.

I smiled, as I suppose was expected of me. Little did she suspect that the only case I had was hers.

We walked on chatting idly. What was said wouldn't be worth repeating, I expect, even if I could remember it. For me the mere sound of her voice was enough.

There was no mention of the unhappy things that were past. We were all engaged in a tacit conspiracy to look forward. She told me of the new play that was proposed for her. She insisted that I must read it before the matter was finally determined.

"You have such wonderful good sense!" she said. "And not at all affected by the actor's point of view."

Mount's face looked a little pinched at this warm praise. I wondered, had he been consulted about the play. If he really honoured me with his jealousy he was foolish. I did not dream of aspiring to be anything more than her honest, faithful friend. Sadie, I hoped, was my destined mate while Irma Hamerton was—why she was the sun over us all. Sadie herself felt the same towards her as I did. On the other hand I was jealous of Mount. I considered him presumptuous to aspire to our sun, as he plainly did. He wasn't half good enough—half?—he wasn't worthy to tie her shoe. Besides, I was anxious about Roland.

At Forty-second street they were turning West to the theatre district, and I bade them good-bye. Miss Hamerton covered me with confusion by asking me to dine with her at her hotel the same night.

"Is it to be a party?" I asked.

"No, indeed," she said. "Nobody but Alfred."

This "Alfred" was new. It had always been "Mr. Mount." It set my teeth on edge.

I accepted and left them.

Dinner was served in her exquisite little drawing-room now loaded with sweet peas. For some reason that I have forgotten, the tiresome old Mrs. Bleecker was not in evidence—still I did not have a good time. I believe none of us had. "Alfred" still stuck in my crop. I reflected jealously, that if it had not been for the accidental meeting with me, Mount would have been alone with her. No doubt he was thinking of that, too. Everything from hors d'oeuvres to chartreuse was exquisite, but I had no zest in it.

It was "Alfred" this and "Alfred" that. Really it seemed as if my dear lady was rubbing it in. I suppose that was her delicate way of letting me know of her intentions. I fancied I perceived a certain apprehensiveness in her as to how I was going to take it. Perhaps I flattered myself. Anyhow it was enough to make the angels weep. She was not in the least in love with him, she could not have been, but after the way of dear, ignorant women she was trying to persuade herself that she was. Hence the "Alfreds." I thought of my passionate young friend eating his heart out in a hall bedroom and my food choked me.

Irma made some half laughing reference to the relief of being freed from Mrs. Bleecker's presence.

"If she bothers you why don't you let her go?" said Mount.

"Poor soul! What would she do?" said Irma. "She'd never get another situation, she's so disagreeable. Besides, I don't know that I could do any better."

"Hardly worth while," said Mount. "You won't need a chaperon much longer."

This was plain enough. It killed conversation for a moment or two. I was sure Irma sent an imploring glance in my direction, but I kept my eyes on my plate. Was it imploring me not to judge her, or imploring me to support her in what she meant to do, or imploring me to save her from it? How was a man to tell? I am sure she would have been glad if I had forced the question into the open, but I didn't know how to do it. True, I could have dropped a bomb in the middle of the table that would have shattered Mount's hopes, merely by telling what I knew of Roland. But my lips were sealed by my promise to him.

Mount made some facetious remark at which we laughed and fled from the disconcerting subject. But it seemed as if we could not avoid it for long. The most innocent line of conversation had a way of landing us squarely in front of it. As when Irma said:

"Have you heard that Beulah Maddox has started again to get a divorce?"

Miss Maddox had been the heavy woman in our company.

"That is the eleventh time she has started proceedings, isn't it?" said I.

"Constant in inconstancy!" murmured Mount.

"Miss Maddox's emotions are like soap-bubbles," I said.

"Do you think women are fickle?" Irma asked with a direct look in which there was something very painful.

I, thinking of poor Roland agonizing over his shorthand book until after midnight every night, could not help but shrug slightly.

"If they are it's the men's fault!" said Irma bitterly. "The men I have known would make constancy in women an indication of imbecility!"

So there we were again!

"Funny, isn't it," drawled Mount, "how the sexes have no use for each other, yet love stones still sell."

We laughed again. You had to admit Mount was a good man at a dinner t............