?"

Jill laughed.

"Nobody's asked me."

"Somebody thoon will. At least, if he's on the level, and I think he
is. You can generally tell by the look of a guy, and, if you ask me,
friend Pilkington's got the licence in hith pocket and the ring all
ordered and everything."

"Pilkington!" cried Jill aghast.

She remembered certain occasions during rehearsals, when, while the
chorus idled in the body of the theatre and listened to the principals
working at their scenes, the elongated Pilkington had suddenly
appeared in the next seat and conversed sheepishly in a low voice.
Could this be love? If so, it was a terrible nuisance. Jill had had
her experience in London of enamoured young men who, running true to
national form, declined to know when they were beaten, and she had not
enjoyed the process of cooling their ardour. She had a kind heart, and
it distressed her to give pain. It also got on her nerves to be dogged
by stricken males who tried to catch her eye in order that she might
observe their broken condition. She recalled one house-party in Wales
where it rained all the time and she had been cooped up with a victim
who kept popping out from obscure corners and beginning all his pleas
with the words "I say, you know...!" She trusted that Otis Pilkington
was not proposing to conduct a wooing on those lines. Yet he had
certainly developed a sinister habit of popping out at the theatre. On
several occasions he had startled her by appearing at her side as if
he had come up out of a trap.

"Oh, no!" cried Jill.

"Oh, yeth!" insisted the cherub, waving imperiously to an approaching
street-car. "Well, I must be getting up-town. I've got a date. Thee
you later."

"I'm sure you're mistaken."

"I'm not."

"But what makes you think so?"

The cherub placed a hand on the rail of the car, preparatory to
swinging herself on board.

"Well, for one thing," she said, "he'th been stalking you like an
Indian ever since we left the theatre! Look behind you. Good-bye,
honey. Thend me a piece of the cake!"

The street-car bore her away. The last that Jill saw of her was a wide
and amiable grin. Then, turning, she beheld the snake-like form of
Otis Pilkington towering at her side.

Mr. Pilkington seemed nervous but determined. His face was half hidden
by the silk scarf that muffled his throat, for he was careful of his
health and had a fancied tendency to bronchial trouble. Above the
scarf a pair of mild eyes gazed down a