e
was all set for the reconciliation and the slow fade-out on the embrace.
To bring this last scene about, Fate had had to permit herself a slight
coincidence, but she did not jib at that. What we call coincidences are
merely the occasions when Fate gets stuck in a plot and has to invent
the next situation in a hurry.

Sam Marlowe felt sulky and defiant. This girl had treated him shamefully
and he wanted to have nothing more to do with her. If he had had his
wish, he would never have met her again. Fate, in her interfering way,
had forced this meeting on him and was now complacently looking to him
to behave in a suitable manner. Well, he would show her! In a few
seconds now, Billie and he would be meeting. He would be distant and
polite. He would be cold and aloof. He would chill her to the bone, and
rip a hole in the scenario six feet wide.

The door opened, and the room became full of Bennetts and Mortimers.

Sec. 2

Billie, looking, as Marlowe could not but admit, particularly pretty,
headed the procession. Following her came a large red-faced man whose
buttons seemed to creak beneath the strain of their duties. After him
trotted a small, thin, pale, semi-bald individual who wore glasses and
carried his nose raised and puckered as though some faintly unpleasant
smell were troubling his nostrils. The fourth member of the party was
dear old Bream.

There was a confused noise of mutual greetings and introductions, and
then Bream got a good sight of Sam and napped forward with his right
wing outstretched.

"Why, hello!" said Bream.

"How are you, Mortimer?" said Sam coldly.

"What, do you know my son?" exclaimed Sir Mallaby.

"Came over in the boat together," said Bream.

"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Old friends, eh? Miss Bennett," he turned
to Billie, who had been staring wide-eyed at her late fiance, "let me
present my son, Sam. Sam, this is Miss Bennett."

"How do you do?" said Sam.

"How do you do?" said Billie.

"Bennett, you've never met my son, I think?"

Mr. Bennett peered at Sam with protruding eyes which gave him the
appearance of a rather unusually stout prawn.

"How _are_ you?" he asked, with such intensity that Sam unconsciously
found himself replying to a question which does not as a rule call for
any answer.

"Very well, thanks."

Mr. Bennett shook his head moodily. "You are lucky to be able to say so!
Very few of us can assert as much. I can truthfully say that in the last
fifte