in her desire for
information concerning Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald?"

"Then," Peter Ruff admitted, "I'm afraid that I must conclude that her
unchivalrous clod of a husband has indeed stooped to make a fool of
her."

"And in that case," Miss Brown demanded, "what shall you do?"

"I was just thinking that out," Peter Ruff said mildly, "when you
spoke...."

The friendship of Peter Ruff with the wife of his enemy certainly
appeared to progress in most satisfactory fashion. The dinner and visit
to the theatre duly took place. Mr. Ruff was afterwards permitted to
offer a slight supper and to accompany his fair companion a portion of
the way home in a taxicab. She made several half-hearted attempts to
return to the subject of Spencer Fitzgerald, but her companion had been
able on each occasion to avoid the subject. Whether or not she was the
victim of her husband's guile, there was no question about the reality
of her enjoyment during the evening. Ruff, when he remembered the flash
of her eyes across the table, the touch of her fingers in the taxi, was
almost content to believe her false to her truant lover. If only she had
not been married to John Dory, he realised, with a little sigh, that he
might have taught her to forget that such a person existed as Spencer
Fitzgerald, might have induced her to become Mrs. Peter Ruff!

On their next meeting, however, Peter Ruff was forced to realise that
his secretary's instinct had not misled her. It was, alas, no personal
and sentimental regrets for her former lover which had brought the fair
Maud to his office. The pleasures of her evening--they dined at Romano's
and had a box at the Empire--were insufficient this time to keep her
from recurring continually to the subject of her vanished lover. He
tried strategy--jealousy amongst other things.

"Supposing," he said, as they sat quite close to one another in the box
during the interval, "supposing I were to induce our friend to come to
London--I imagine he would be fairly safe now if he kept out of your
husband's way--what would happen to me?"

"You!" she murmured, glancing at him from behind her fan and then
dropping her eyes.

"Certainly--me!" he continued. "Don't you think that I should be doing
myself a very ill turn if I brought you two together? I have very few
friends, and I cannot afford to lose one. I am quite sure that you still
care for him."

She shook her head.

"Not a scrap!" she declared.

"Then why did you