nie and Lunie Le Face--one, I fancy, is more simultaneous than
the other, I forget which. They are delightful, and will wake Denison
up. In fact, I don't know who they _wouldn't_ wake up, they make such a
row. They dance and sing, about Dixie and Honey and coons--and that sort
of thing. They sing quite well, too--I mean for them."

"But not for us? ... No, I don't want to take him with Madeline to
anything that could be called a music-hall--something more correct for a
_jeune fille_ would be better. ..."

"To lead to a proposal, you mean. Well, we'd better fall back upon His
Majesty's or Granville Barker. Poor Charlie! It's hard lines on that
boy, Bertha--he's really keen on Miss Irwin."

"I know; but what can we do? It's Rupert Denison she cares about."

"Likes him, does she?" said Nigel.

"Very much," answered Bertha, who rarely used a strong expression, but
whose eyes made the words emphatic.

Nigel whistled. "Oh, well, if it's as bad as that!"

"It is. Quite."

"Fancy! Lucky chap, old Rupert. Well, we must rush it through for them,
I suppose. About the play--you want something serious, what price
Shakespeare?"

"No price. Let's go to the Russian Ballet."

"Capital!" cried Nigel, moving quickly to the telephone in case she
should change her mind; "and we'll dine at the Carlton first. May I use
your telephone?"

"Please!"

CHAPTER III

NIGEL

The relation between Bertha and Nigel Hillier was a rather curious one.
He had met her when she was eighteen. The attraction had been sudden,
violent and mutual; and she was quite prepared to marry him against all
opposition. There had been a good deal in her own family, because Nigel
was what is euphemistically called without means, and she was the
daughter of a fashionable London vicar who, though distinguished for his
eloquence and extremely popular, successful and social, had a
comparatively small income and a positively large family. In a short
time Nigel--not Bertha--succumbed to the family opposition and the
general prudent disapproval of worldly friends. He wrote and told Bertha
that he was afraid after all they were right; persuaded to this view by
having meanwhile met the only daughter of a millionaire when staying for
a week-end at a country house. The girl had fallen in love with him,
and was practically independent.

A few months after his gorgeous wedding, described and photographed with
the greatest enthusiasm in all the illustrated pape