rayton had the habit of
dropping in for an act or two and then disappearing--but on her own
doorstep she tossed off her carriage wrap and sent Martin back to the
stables.

"Let's talk, instead," she said, and she made me coffee in the
library, with one of those French pots that gurgle conveniently when
you don't exactly know what to say. That pot did a heap of gurgling
before we began to talk. When she spoke, what she said almost took me
off my chair.

"Percy, have you seen the show at the Gaiety?" she asked.

I had seen it more than once, and I said so.

"They tell me there's a song there----" she went on.

"There are a lot of songs," said I.

"There's one in particular."

There wasn't any use in fencing, so I answered: "You mean the 'Jo-Jo'
song. It's a silly little ditty, and it's sung by----"

"A girl named Hartopp--Maisie Hartopp." She was speaking as if she
were trying to remember where she'd heard the name.

Of course, me for the clumsy speech. "She's a winner," I cut in.

She got up at that, and walked over to the fireplace. "She seems to
be," she said, picking at a bit of bronze, a wedding present, I think.
Then she came over to where I was sitting and put a hand on my
shoulder. I'd have got to my feet if I hadn't been afraid to face her.
"Percy----" she began, and I felt the fingers on my shoulder quiver. I
don't think the Apaches handed out anything much worse in the torture
line than the quiver of a woman's ringers upon your shoulder, when you
know that those fingers aren't quivering on your account. Maybe that
occurred to her, for a second later she took her hand away. "You once
said something foolish to me, Percy," she said.

I nodded my head, my eyes upon an edge of the Royal Bokhara. "It was
in a canoe, wasn't it?" I replied. "There was a moon, of course, and
the paddle blades went drip, drip."

"You meant what you said then, didn't you?"

My gaze was wavering from the rug by now. Little wonder, was it? "I
meant it all right," I got out after a while. "Do you want to hear me
say my little speech over again?" Was it possible that, after all,
Natica Drayton had really decided to toss Jack over, and take on a
fag, warranted kind and gentle, able to be driven by any lady? But I
forgot that foolish notion pretty nearly right off.

"There is a husband," she went on, as if taking account of stock.

"There always is," I rejoined. "Some of 'em are good and the others
are bad." I chuckled despit