t. As regards--Miss Barnes, there has been
no direct misunderstanding between us, but I am afraid, for the present,
that I must consider that--well, in abeyance."

"That is something!" she exclaimed, drawing a little breath of relief.
"Sit down, Peter. Will you have something to eat? I finished dinner an
hour ago, but--"

"Thank you," Fitzgerald interrupted, "I supped--extremely well in
Streatham!"

"In Streatham!" she repeated. "Why, how did you get there? The fog is
awful."

"Fogs do not trouble me," Fitzgerald answered. "I walked. I could have
done it as well blindfold. I will take a whisky and soda, if I may."

She led him to an easy-chair.

"I will mix it myself," she said.

Without being remarkably good-looking, she was certainly a pleasant
and attractive-looking young woman. Her cheeks were a little pale; her
hair--perfectly natural--was a wonderful deep shade of soft brown. Her
eyes were long and narrow--almost Oriental in shape--and they seemed
in some queer way to match the room; he could have sworn that in the
firelight they flashed green. Her body and limbs, notwithstanding her
extreme slightness, were graceful, perhaps, but with the grace of the
tigress. She wore a green silk dressing jacket, pulled together with a
belt of lizard skin, and her neck was bare. Her skirt was of some thin
black material. She was obviously in deshabille, and yet there was
something neat and trim about the smaller details of her toilette.

"Go on, please, Peter," she begged. "You are keeping me in suspense."

"There isn't much to tell," he answered. "It's over--that's all."

She drew a sharp breath through her teeth.

"You are not going to marry that girl--that bourgeois doll in
Streatham?"

Fitzgerald sat up in his chair.

"Look here," he said, seriously, "don't you call her names. If I'm not
going to marry her, it isn't my fault. She is the only girl I have ever
wanted, and probably--most probably--she will be the only one I ever
shall want. That's honest, isn't it?"

The girl winced.

"Yes," she said, "it is honest!"

"I should have married her," the young man continued, "and I should have
been happy. I had my eye on a villa--not too near her parents--and I saw
my way to a little increase of salary. I should have taken to gardening,
to walks in the Park, with an occasional theatre, and I should
have thoroughly enjoyed a fortnight every summer at Skegness or
Sutton-on-Sea. We should have saved a little mone