orld. He was especially struck with, and he admired the conclusion
of, the story, for Mike had invented a dramatic and effective ending.

"Well-nigh mad, drunk with her beauty and the sensuous charm of her
imagination, I threw my arms about her. I felt her limbs against
mine, and I said, 'I am mad for you; give yourself to me, and make
this afternoon memorable.' There was a faint smile of reply in her
eyes. They laughed gently, and she said, 'Well, perhaps I do love you
a little.'"

Frank was deeply impressed by Mike's tact and judgement, and they
talked of women, discussing each shade of feminine morality through
the smoke of innumerable cigarettes; and after each epigram they
looked in each other's eyes astonished at their genius and
originality. Then Mike spoke of the paper and the articles that would
have to be written on the morrow. He promised to get to work early,
and they said good-night.

When Frank left Southwick two years ago and pursued Lizzie Baker to
London, he had found her in straitened circumstances and unable to
obtain employment. The first night he took her out to dinner and
bought her a hat, on the second he bought her a gown, and soon after
she became his mistress. Henceforth his days were devoted to her;
they were seen together in all popular restaurants, and in the
theatres. One day she went to see some relations, and Frank had to
dine alone. He turned into Lubini's, but to his annoyance the only
table available was one which stood next where Mike Fletcher was
dining. "That fellow dining here," thought Frank, "when he ought to
be digging potatoes in Ireland." But the accident of the waiter
seeking for a newspaper forced him to say a few words, and Mike
talked so agreeably that at the end of dinner they went out together
and walked up and down, talking on journalism and women.

Suddenly the last strand of Frank's repugnance to make a friend of
Mike broke, and he asked him to come up to his rooms and have a
drink. They remained talking till daybreak, and separated as friends
in the light of the empty town. Next day they dined together, and a
few days after Frank and Lizzie breakfasted with Mike at his
lodgings. But during the next month they saw very little of him, and
this pause in the course of dining and journalistic discussion,
indicating, as Frank thought it did, a coolness on Mike's part,
determined the relation of these two men. When they ran against each
other in the corridor of a theat