automatically--regards them as a perquisite of its existence."

"I wish my husband were in your profession, Mr. Ruff," Maud said, with a
sidelong glance of her blue eyes which she had always found so effective
upon her various admirers. "I am sure that I should be a great deal
fonder of him."

Peter Ruff leaned forward in his chair. He, too, had expressive eyes at
times.

"Madam," he said--and stopped. But Maud blushed, all the same.

She looked down into her lap.

"We are forgetting Mr. Fitzgerald," she murmured.

Peter Ruff glanced up at the clock.

"It is a long story," he said. "Are you in a hurry, Mrs. Dory?

"Not at all," she assured him, "unless you want to close you office, or
anything. It must be nearly one o'clock."

"I wonder," he asked, "if you would do me the honour of lunching with
me? We might go to the Prince's or the Carlton--whichever you prefer. I
will promise to talk about Mr. Fitzgerald all the time."

"Oh, I couldn't!" Maud declared, with a little gasp. "At least--well,
I'm sure I don't know!"

"You have no engagement for luncheon?" Peter Ruff asked quietly.

"Oh, no!" she answered; "but, you see, we live so quietly. I have
never been to one of those places. I'd love to go--but if we were seen!
Wouldn't people talk?"

Peter Ruff smiled. Just the same dear, modest little thing!

"I can assure you," he said, "that nothing whatever could be said
against our lunching together. People are not so strict nowadays, you
know, and a married lady has always a great deal of latitude."

She looked up at him with a dazzling smile.

"I'd simply love to go to Prince's!" she declared.

"Cat!" Miss Brown murmured, as Peter Ruff and his client left the room
together.

Peter Ruff returned from his luncheon in no very jubilant state of mind.
For some time he sat in his easy-chair, with his legs crossed and
his finger tips pressed close together, looking steadily into space.
Contrary to his usual custom, he did not smoke. Miss Brown watched him
from behind her machine.

"Disenchanted?" she asked calmly.

Peter Ruff did not reply for several moments.

"I am afraid," he admitted, hesitatingly, "that marriage with John Dory
has--well, not had a beneficial effect. She allowed me, for instance, to
hold her hand in the cab! Maud would never have permitted a stranger to
take such a liberty in the old days."

Miss Brown smiled curiously.

"Is that all?" she asked.

Peter Ruff felt that he was in