gth of a running wave. "I can
only repeat what you told me. That there was something you needed--and
wanted"--she is mocking now--"and didn't have at present. And that you
would probably--what was it?--oh yes--have it, in the end."

The wispy little woman has crept up to Ted's elbow with an illegible
bill. Rose has spoken slowly to give her time to get there--it is always
so much better to choose your own most effective background for really
affecting scenes.

"And now I really must be getting back," she cuts in briskly, her
fingers playing with a hat that certainly needs no rearrangement, when
Ted, after absent-mindedly paying the bill, is starting to speak in the
voice of one still sleep-walking.

"But it _was_ delightful, Mr. Billett--I love talking about myself and
you were really very sweet to listen so nicely." She has definitely
risen. Ted must, too. "We must do it again some time soon--I'm going to
see if there aren't any of those books with long German names drifting
around 'Mode' somewhere so that I'll be able to simply stun you with my
erudition the next time we talk over dreams."

They are at the door now, she guiding him toward it as imperceptibly and
skillfully as if she controlled him by wireless.

"And it isn't fair of me to let you give all the parties--it
simply isn't. Couldn't you come up to dinner in my little apartment
sometime--it really isn't unconventional, especially for anyone who's
once seen my pattern of an English maid--"

Sunlight and Minetta Lane again--and whatever Ted may want to say out
of his walking trance--this is certainly no place where any of it can be
said.

XII

Oliver Crowe, at his desk in the copy-department of Vanamee and Co.'s,
has been spending most of the afternoon twiddling pencils and reading
and rereading two letters out of his pocket instead of righteously
thinking up layouts for the new United Steel Frame Pulley Campaign. He
realizes that the layouts are important--that has been brought to his
attention already by several pink memoranda from Mr. Delier, the head
of the department--but an immense distaste for all things in general and
advertising in particular has overwhelmed him all day. He looks
around the big, brightly lighted room with a stupefied sort of
loathing--advertising does not suit him--he is doing all he can at it
because of Nancy--but he simply does not seem to get the hang of the
thing even after eight months odd and he is conscious of t