between her skirts and the wheel. Simultaneously he received a vivid mental photograph of the locality.

Frognall Street proved to be one of those by-ways, a short block in length, which, hemmed in on all sides by a meaner purlieu, has (even in Bloomsbury!) escaped the sordid commercial eye of the keeper of furnished lodgings, retaining jealously something of the old-time dignity and reserve that were its pride in the days before Society swarmed upon Mayfair and Belgravia.

Its houses loomed tall, with many windows, mostly lightless—materially aggravating that air of isolate, cold dignity which distinguishes the Englishman's castle. Here and there stood one less bedraggled than its neighbors, though all, without exception, spoke assertively of respectability down-at-the-heel but fighting tenaciously for existence. Some, vanguards of that imminent day when the boarding-house should reign supreme, wore with shamefaced air placards of estate-agents, advertising their susceptibility to sale or lease. In the company of the latter was Number 9.

The American noted the circumstance subconsciously, at a moment when Miss Calendar's hand, small as a child's, warm and compact in its white glove, lay in his own. And then she was on the sidewalk, her face, upturned to his, vivacious with excitement.

"You have been so kind," she told him warmly, "that one hardly knows how to thank you, Mr. Kirkwood."

"I have done nothing—nothing at all," he mumbled, disturbed by a sudden, unreasoning alarm for her.

She passed quickly to the shelter of the pillared portico. He followed clumsily. On the door-step she turned, offering her hand. He took and retained it.

"Good night," she said.

"I'm to understand that I'm dismissed, then?" he stammered ruefully.

She evaded his eyes. "I—thank you—I have no further need—"

"You are quite sure? Won't you believe me at your service?"

She laughed uneasily. "I'm all right now."

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