eatest issues of life sometimes resolve themselves into such
questions as these.

Finally, scarcely conscious of arriving at any definite decision,
he walked slowly back across the Circus in the direction of Lower
Regent Street.

Over by the Criterion he heard the sound of footsteps behind him,
hurrying; then his Christian name in a woman's voice. He turned.

"I was up nearly at the Prince of Wales's," she said out of breath,
"when I saw you crossing the Circus. My--I ran!"

"What for?" he asked laconically.

"Why to talk to you, of course--what else? Where are you going?"

He looked at her coloured lips, at the tired eyes with their blackened
lashes, at the flush of rouge that adorned her cheeks. Involuntarily,
he remembered when she was charming, pretty--a time when she required
none of these things.

"Where are you going anyway?" she repeated. "You haven't been to see
me these months. Where are you going now?"

"I'm going back to my rooms."

A look of resigned disappointment passed like a shadow across her
face. The first realization in a woman of her failure to attract is
the beginning of every woman's tragedy.

"Never seen my rooms, have you?" he added.

"No; never expected to."

"Come in and see them now and have a talk."

"You don't mean that?" Eagerness dragged it out of her.

"Come along," he said; "they're just down here--in Regent Street."

She followed him silently--silently, but in that moment her spirits
had lifted. There was a wider swing in her walk. But he took no notice
of that; he was not observant.

She hummed a tune with a rather pretty voice as she walked up the
flights of stairs behind him.

"Gosh! it's dark," she exclaimed.

"Oh, it's none of your bachelor flats with lifts and attendants and
electric lights," he replied.

On the third landing she stopped--out of breath again.

"Tired?" he said.

"There--" she laid a hand on her chest and breathed heavily. Then
she moved a step nearer to him.

"Give us a kiss, dearie," she whispered.

He retreated a step. "My dear child--I didn't want you for that. Come
up to the next floor when you've got your breath. I'll go on and light
the candles."

He left her there in the semi-darkness, the thin light from the
landing window just breaking up the heavy shadows. When she heard
him open the door upstairs, she moved close to the window, took a
small mirror from her little reticule bag and gazed for a moment at
her face in its re