ay seem gross,
but I had no dinner."

"You poor dear! Why not?"

"Just nervousness."

"Why, of course." The interlude of the fire had caused her to forget
his private and personal connection with the night's events. Her mind
went back to something he had said in the theatre. "Wally--" She
stopped, a little embarrassed. "I suppose I ought to call you Mr.
Mason, but I've always thought of you...."

"Wally, if you please, Jill. It's not as though we were strangers. I
haven't my book of etiquette with me, but I fancy that about eleven
gallons of cold water down the neck constitutes an introduction. What
were you going to say?"

"It was what you said to Freddie about putting up money. Did you
really?"

"Put up the money for that ghastly play? I did. Every cent. It was the
only way to get it put on."

"But why...? I forget what I was going to say!"

"Why did I want it put on? Well, it does seem odd, but I give you my
honest word that until to-night I thought the darned thing a
masterpiece. I've been writing musical comedies for the last few
years, and after you've done that for a while your soul rises up
within you and says, 'Come, come, my lad! You can do better than
this!' That's what mine said, and I believed it. Subsequent events
have proved that Sidney the Soul was pulling my leg!"

"But--then you've lost a great deal of money?"

"The hoarded wealth, if you don't mind my being melodramatic for a
moment, of a lifetime. And no honest old servitor who dangled me on
his knee as a baby to come along and offer me his savings! They don't
make servitors like that in America, worse luck. There is a Swedish
lady who looks after my simple needs back there, but instinct tells me
that, if I were to approach her on the subject of loosening up for the
benefit of the young master, she would call a cop. Still, I've gained
experience, which they say is just as good as cash, and I've enough
money left to pay the bill, at any rate, so come along."

In the supper-room of the Savoy Hotel there was, as anticipated, food
and light and music. It was still early, and the theatres had not yet
emptied themselves, so that the big room was as yet but half full.
Wally Mason had found a table in the corner, and proceeded to order
with the concentration of a hungry man.

"Forgive my dwelling so tensely on the bill-of-fare," he said, when
the waiter had gone. "You don't know what it means to one in my
condition to have to choose between