Yes."

"Who is it?" Edward Henry pursued lightly, for though he appreciated
Mr. Harrier, he also despised him. However, he found the grace to add:
"May one ask?"

"It's Miss Elsie April."

"Do you mean to say, Marrier," complained Edward Henry, "that you've
known Miss Elsie April all these months and never told me?... There
aren't two, I suppose? It's the cousin or something of Rose Euclid?"

Mr. Marrier nodded. "The fact is," he said, "she and I are joint
honorary organizing secretaries for the annual conference of the Azure
Society. You know--it leads the New Thought movement in England."

"You never told me that, either?"

"Didn't I, sir? I didn't think it would interest you. Besides, both
Miss April and I are comparatively new members."

"Oh," said Edward Henry, with all the canny provincial's conviction of
his own superior shrewdness; and he repeated, so as to intensify this
conviction and impress it on others, "Oh!" In the undergrowth of his
mind was the thought: "How dare this man whose brains belong to me be
the organizing secretary of something that I don't know anything about
and don't want to know anything about?"

"Yes," said Mr. Marrier, modestly.

"I say," Edward Henry inquired warmly, with an impulsive gesture, "who
is she?"

"Who is she?" repeated Mr. Marrier, blankly.

"Yes. What does she do?"

"Doesn't do anything," said Mr. Marrier. "Very good amateur actress.
Goes about a great deal. Her mother was on the stage. Married a
wealthy wholesale corset-maker."

"Who did? Miss April?" Edward Henry had a twinge.

"No. Her mother. Both parents dead, and Miss April has an income--a
considerable income."

"What do you call considerable?"

"Five or six thousand a year."

"The deuce!" murmured Edward Henry.

"May have lost a bit of it, of course," Mr. Marrier hedged. "But not
much, not much!"

"Well," said Edward Henry, smiling, "what about _my_ tea? Am I to have
tea all by myself?"

"Will you come down and meet her?" Mr. Marrier's expression approached
the wistful.

"Well," said Edward Henry, "it's an idea, isn't it? Why should I be
the only person in London who doesn't know Miss Elsie April?"

It was ten minutes past four when they descended into the electric
publicity of the Grand Babylon. Amid the music and the rattle of
crockery and the gliding waiters and the large nodding hats that
gathered more and more thickly round the tables, there was no sign of
Elsie April.

"She may