no!" she replied. "What I write isn't fiction. That's why it sells. It's truth, you see, under another garb. But there the fact remains--that I shouldn't know how to make tea for another man in the world, and you wouldn't be able to read the letters of any other woman who wrote as badly as I do."

"The fact," he remarked, "seems to me to be a cause for mutual congratulation."

She stooped down to place a dish of muffins on a heater near the fire, graceful yet as a girl, and as brisk.

"I can't imagine," she declared, "why it is that my sex has acquired the reputation for fidelity. I am sure we crave for experience much more than men."

The Marquis helped himself to a muffin and considered the point. There were many times when Marcia's conversation troubled him. He was by no means an ill-read or unintellectual man, only his studies of literature had been confined to its polished and classical side, the side which deals so much with living and so little with life."Are you preparing for a new work of fiction, Marcia," he asked, "or are you developing a fresh standpoint?"

"Dear friend," she declared, lightly and yet with an undernote of earnestness, "how can I tell?  I never know what I am going to do in the way of work.  I wish I could say the same about life.  Now I am going to ask you a great favour.  I have to attend a small meeting at my club, at the other end of Piccadilly, at half-past five.  Would you take me there?"

"I shall be delighted," he answered, a little stiffly.

She went presently to put on her outdoor clothes.  The Marquis was disappointed.  He realised how much he had looked forward to that quiet twilight hour, when somehow or other his vanity felt soothed, and that queer weariness which came over him sometimes was banished.  He escorted Marcia to the car when she reappeared, however, without complaint.

"I see your name in the papers sometimes, Marcia," he observed as he took his place by her side, "in connection with women's work.  Of course, I do not interfere in any way with your energies.  I should not, in whatever direction they might chance to lead you.  At the same time, I must confess that I have noticed with considerable pleasure that you have never been publicly associated with this movement in favour of Woman's Suffrage."

She nodded.

"I should like a vote 

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