st intimate confidences by young men whom she had
met for the first time the same evening at a dance. She had been
forced to believe that there was something about her personality that
acted on a certain type of man like the crack in the dam, setting
loose the surging flood of their eloquence. To this class Otis
Pilkington evidently belonged, for, once started, he withheld nothing.

"It isn't that I'm dependent on Aunt Olive or anything like that," he
vouchsafed, as he stirred the tea in his Japanese-print hung studio.
"But you know how it is. Aunt Olive is in a position to make it very
unpleasant for me if I do anything foolish. At present, I have reason
to know that she intends to leave me practically all that she
possesses. Millions!" said Mr. Pilkington, handing Jill a cup. "I
assure you, millions! But there is a hard commercial strain in her. It
would have the most prejudicial effect upon her if; especially after
she had expressly warned me against it, I were to lose a great deal of
money over this production. She is always complaining that I am not a
business man like my late uncle. Mr. Waddesleigh Peagrim made a
fortune in smoked hams." Mr. Pilkington looked at the Japanese prints,
and shuddered slightly. "Right up to the time of his death he was
urging me to go into the business. I could not have endured it. But,
when I heard those two men discussing the play, I almost wished that I
had done so."

Jill was now completely disarmed. She would almost have patted this
unfortunate young man's head, if she could have reached it.

"I shouldn't worry about the piece," she said. "I've read somewhere or
heard somewhere that it's the surest sign of a success when actors
don't like a play."

Mr. Pilkington drew his chair an imperceptible inch nearer.

"How sympathetic you are!"

Jill perceived with chagrin that she had been mistaken after all. It
_was_ the love light. The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles sprayed it
all over her like a couple of searchlights. Otis Pilkington was
looking exactly like a sheep, and she knew from past experience that
that was the infallible sign. When young men looked like that, it was
time to go.

"I'm afraid I must be off," she said. "Thank you so much for giving me
tea. I shouldn't be a bit afraid about the play. I'm sure it's going
to be splendid. Good-bye."

"You aren't going already?"

"I must. I'm very late as it is. I promised...."

Whatever fiction Jill might have invented t