xplain your note, and I can go away."

She seemed in no hurry.

"I know," she said, "that you are dying for your smoky little club, your
Scotch whiskey and your pipe. Never mind, it is well for you sometimes
to be disciplined."

"At the present moment," he said, "I long for nothing beyond what I
have."

She turned to look at him with an amused smile. The lights flashed on
the diamonds around her throat, and the glittering spangles upon her
black dress. Truly a wonderfully beautiful woman--a divine figure, and
a dress, which scarcely a woman who had looked at it had not envied.

"You are getting wonderfully apt, my grim friend," she said, "at those
speeches which once you affected to despise."

"It was never the speeches I despised," he answered bluntly, "it was the
insincerity."

"And you, I suppose, are the only sincere man who makes them. My
friend, that little speech errs on the other side, does it not?"

He frowned impatiently.

"You have many guests," he said, "who will be looking for you. Let me
know why you made me treat that young man so badly, and then go away.

"Have you treated him badly then?" she asked.

"Very. I recalled my acceptance of his story, and declined to discuss
future work with him. I have deprived the _Ibex_ of a contributor who
might possibly have become a very valuable one, and I have gone back
upon my word. I want to know why."

"I am afraid," she said softly, "that it was for me."

"For you," he answered, "of course. But your letter hinted at an
explanation."

"Explanations" she yawned, "are so tedious."

"Tell me, at least," he said, "how the poor young idiot offended you."

"Offended me! Scarcely that."

"You are not a woman" he said, "to interfere in anything without a
cause."

"I am a woman of whim," she said. "You have told me so many times."

"You are a very wonderful woman," he said softly, "and you know very
well that your will is quite sufficient for me. Yet you are also a
generous woman. I have many a time had to stand godfather to your
literary foundlings. You have never yet exercised the contrary
privilege. I have done a mean thing and an ungenerous thing, and though
I would do it again at your bidding, again and again, I should like an
excuse--if there is any excuse."

"I am so sorry," she said. "There will be no excuse for you. I, too,
have been mean and ungenerous--but I should be the same again. I took
some interest in that young man, and I offered