idence to demand
and get."

"Women are too humble."

"I never found them so," Rokeby denied respectfully.

"Well, half of them are too humble, and the other half are
slave-drivers. If a girl's got to choose one or the other, she'd
better drive."

"That's awf'ly sound," said Rokeby.

They neared a taxicab rank, and the first driver watched their
approach with inquiring signal. "Cab!" Rokeby sang out, and the man
started his engine.

"Where are we going?" Julia asked.

"Where you like," Desmond answered, "only let's start there."

He opened the door, she passed in, and he directed, "Piccadilly; and
I'll tell you just where, presently."

He followed Julia in, and they were away, over suburban roads darker
than the streets of the West.

Rokeby felt a certain triumph in capturing Julia. Besides her modern
fighting quality, to which he was not entirely antagonistic, he
realised that she was a pleasure to the eye, a well-tailored, handsome
girl, town-bred, town-poised, of the neat, trim type so approved by
the male eye. She knew her value too. She made a man think. Cheap
attentions she would have handed back as trash, without thanks, to the
donor. She conferred a favour, but would never receive one. Her
self-assurance was no less than royal, and a word or touch in
violation would have been stamped a rank impertinence. Rokeby, who had
made the same pleasant uses of taxicabs as most men about town, knew
all this with a half-sigh.

"Where would you like to dine?" he asked. "What kind of a place do you
like?"

"A quiet place, to-night," said Julia; "it's better for talking, and
this evening I've got to talk to someone."

Whereby she flattered Rokeby more than by any degree of easy
flirtation which other women might have permitted, as they sped along
the ever-brightening streets.

"We'll go to the Pall Mall, if you like, Miss Winter; it's little,
it's good, it's quiet; interesting people go there; we'll make two
more. How about that?"

"It'll do excellently."

"We shall probably get a balcony table if all those downstairs are
booked."

As Rokeby said, they were in time for a balcony table, and he ordered
dinner and wine before recurring to his former question.

"What was all the mystery about No. 30?"

"I don't call it a mystery; it was just a very ordinary domestic
proposition; I didn't want them to be interrupted this evening,
because, you see--you will laugh--"

"No, I swear I won't; do tell me."