-"

"Letters are rubbish!" she declared with a laugh. "Where can we meet?"

"Agatha is a good soul," said I.

"Well, fix it up by telephone to-morrow."

"Alas!" said I; "I don't run to telephones in my eagle's nest on
Himalaya Mansions."

She knitted her brows. "That's not the last address you wrote from."

"No," I replied, smiling at this glimpse of the matter-of-fact Eleanor.
"It was a joke."

"You're incorrigible!" she said rebukingly.

"I don't joke so well in rags as in silken motley," I returned with a
smile, "but I do my best."

She disdained a retort. "We'll arrange, anyhow, with Agatha."

Campion, escaping from his friends, came up and chatted for a minute.
Then he saw Eleanor and her companion to their carriage.

"Now," said he a moment later, "come to Barbara and have some supper.
You won't mind if Jenkins joins us?"

"Who's Jenkins?" I asked.

"Jenkins is an intelligent gas-fitter of Sociological tastes. He classes
Herbert Spencer, Benjamin Kidd, and Lombroso as light literature. He
also helps us with our young criminals. I should like you to meet him."

"I should be delighted," I said.

So Jenkins was summoned from a little knot a few yards off and duly
presented. Whereupon we proceeded to Campion's plain but comfortably
furnished quarters in Barbara's Building, where he entertained us till
nearly midnight with cold beef and cheese and strenuous conversation.

As I walked across Westminster Bridge on my homeward way it seemed as
if London had grown less hostile. Big Ben chimed twelve and there was a
distinct Dick Whittington touch about the music. The light on the
tower no longer mocked me. As I passed by the gates of Palace Yard,
a policeman on duty recognised me and saluted. I strode on with a
springier tread and noticed that the next policeman who did not know me,
still regarded me with an air of benevolence. A pale moon shone in the
heavens and gave me shyly to understand that she was as much my moon as
any one else's. As I turned into Victoria Street, omnibuses passed
me with a lurch of friendliness. The ban was lifted. I danced
(figuratively) along the pavement.

What it portended I did not realise. I was conscious of nothing but a
spiritual exhilaration comparable only with the physical exhilaration
I experienced in the garden at Algiers when my bodily health had been
finally established. As the body then felt the need of expressing itself
in violent action--in leaping and runnin