s; never wished to feel it was my
execrably bad company that induced him to stay away from them all night
instead of half.

"I say, Vic!"

"Well?"

"Do you know that kissing song Embrasse moi?"

I nodded.

"Don't you think it awfully fetching? I like that refrain so
much--Embrasse moi, chumph! chumph!--and then the orchestra exactly
imitates the sound of a kiss--then Encore une fois!! chumph! chumph!
Don't you?"

"Yes; it isn't bad."

Silence.

"Victor!"

"What?"

"La Faina was there to-night!"

"Oh!"

"Do you know her?"

"I've heard of her."

Silence.

"Vic!"

"Yes?"

"Do you know what Faina means?"

"Of course I do!"

"Do you think it a nice name?"

"Not particularly."

"Well, it's better than Grille d'Egout anyway, isn't it?"

"About on a par, I should say." "How many frills do you think she had
on her petticoat?"

"Oh, I don't know--forty!"

"No; four. I counted them. Her figure is not much up atop, but her"--

"Oh, stow all that!" I interrupted; "there's a good fellow, I'm just
doing a convent interior."

"All right. The rest is silence. Ah!" with a yawn, and getting up to
saunter round the room, "that's a jolly good song--Embrace moi! chumph!
chumph! Encore une fois!! chumph! chumph!"

He did not address me again, but somehow my ideas were scattered. The
convent scene went wrong. Ballet dancers seemed standing in the aisle
where nuns should have been kneeling, and, after a second or so, I
flung my pen down and pushed away the paper.

"Done?" exclaimed Howard, delightedly.

"Yes," I said simply, rising.

"Come and have a smoke," he said, drawing up both easy chairs to the
fire.

I took the cigar he offered and sat down. Howard threw himself into the
other chair, crossed his legs, and proceeded to give me an account of
his experiences. I suppose I was rather silent, for after a time he
broke in upon himself by saying abruptly,--

"Are you very savage with me for interrupting your work?"

"Savage?" I repeated. "Oh, no! the work can wait, I get plenty of time
at it!" Perhaps he misunderstood me, and my words conveyed to him more
than I meant. Any way, the next afternoon he came home early to dine
with me, and afterwards, when I was speaking of the evening's work, he
came up to me where I stood at the mantelpiece and took something out
of his pocket with a confident air.

"I've brought you something," he said, and he thrust suddenly into my
hand--under my eyes--a pho