Billings, who read all the gossip in the weekly periodicals.

Mr. Van Pycke coughed. There seemed some likelihood of his bursting, the fit lasted so long.

"Charlotte is a pet name we have for her," he explained, somewhat huskily, when it was over. "Demmed stupid of me!" he was saying to himself. "As I said before, I don't blame the old lady. Young Mrs. Jim has got five or six of the Scoville millions, and she's showing the family how to spend it. Her husband's been dead over two years. She's got a perfect right to take notice of other men and to have a bit of fun if she takes the notion. Hasn't she? I—I—it wouldn't surprise me at all if she were to take a new husband unto herself before long." He uttered a very conscious cackle and looked at his watch quite suddenly—or past it, rather, for he forgot to open the virtuously chased hunting case.

Billings waited a moment. "I hear she is quite devoted to Chauncey De Foe,—or is it the other way?"

Mr. Van Pycke took five puffs at his cigar before responding, all the while staring at Billings in a perfectly unseeing way.

"I beg pardon? Oh, yes, I see. Not at all, my dear Billings. De Foe is—er—you might say, a part of her past. He's out of it, quite. I don't mind telling you, he's a—ahem! a damned nuisance, though." This time he looked at his watch with considerable asperity. "Half-past eight! Where the devil is Bos—I say, Knapp, can you see the length of the room? Is he in that crowd over there?"

"No, he isn't," said Knapp, shortly.

"I shall have to telephone up to Palmer's room. I must see him before leaving the club. Beastly night, isn't it?"

"Beastly," remarked the two old gentlemen, unconsciously heaving sighs of relief as Mr. Van Pycke arose and adjusted his immaculate waistcoat. Then he moved away, trimly.

A particularly vicious gust of wind swept up to the windows; the fusillade of gritty snowflakes caused the two old men to lift their gaze to the panes. Billings arose and peered into the swirling, seething street. A phantom-like hansom was passing, a vague, top-heavy thing in shifting whites. Two taxicabs crawled humbly up to the club entrance, and away again, ghostly in their surrender to the noise of the wind.

Mr. Billings shuddered as he resumed his seat.

"I wonder if Van Pycke 

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