If I dressed within my means, and never spent a sovereign until it was in my purse, I should not even earn the sovereign. I simply must mix with this crowd whether I can afford it or not.”

“But surely you are paid for your art, not as a mannikin. You are almost in the front rank of musical comedy. I have seen you occasionally at the theater, and I thought you were the best dancer in the company.”

“What about my singing?”

“You have a very agreeable and well trained voice.”

“I’m afraid you are incorrigible. You ought to have said that I sang better than I danced, and the fib would have pleased me immensely; we women like [Pg 8]to hear ourselves praised for accomplishments we don’t possess. No, my dear, rule art out of the cast and substitute advertisement. Did you notice a dowdy creature who was lunching with two men on your right? She wore a brown Tussore silk and a turban—well, she writes the ‘Pars About People’ in ‘The Daily Journal.’ I’ll bet you a pair of gloves that you will see something like this in to-morrow’s paper: ‘Lord Archie Beaumanoir entertained a party of friends at the Embankment Hotel yesterday. At the next table Miss Millicent Jaques, of the Wellington Theater, was lunching with a pretty girl whom I did not know. Miss Jaques wore an exquisite,’ etc., etc. Fill in full details of my personal appearance, and you have the complete paragraph. The public, the stupid, addle-headed public, fatten on that sort of thing, and it keeps me going far more effectively than my feeble attempts to warble a couple of songs which you could sing far better if only you made up your mind to come on the stage. But there! After such unwonted candor I must have a smoke. You won’t try a cigarette? Well, don’t look so shocked. This isn’t a church, you know.”

[Pg 8]

Spencer, who had listened with interest to Miss Jaques’s outspoken views, suddenly awoke to the fact that he was playing the part of an eavesdropper. He had all an American’s chivalrous instincts where women were concerned, and his first impulse was to betake himself and his letters to his own room. Yet, when all was said and done, he was in a hotel; the [Pg 9]girls were strangers, and likely to remain so; and it was their own affair if they chose to indulge in unguarded confidences. So he compromised with his scruples by pouring out a glass of water, replacing the decanter on its tray with some degree of noise. Then he struck an unnecessary match and applied it to his cigar before opening the first of the 

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