on was so delighted he hardly knew if he stood on his head or his
heels. "You are prettier than ever," he said, as the taxi-door shut
and they sped away. "I declare there seems no limit to your beauty."

"Only because you're partial," she said. "I shall grow ugly one day.
Perhaps--soon." With a savage energy, she set to work to completely
overcome him. With a languishing expression in her eyes--eyes, which
she made use of mercilessly, without giving him a moment's
respite--she watched his whole being vibrate with love and adoration.

They had hardly entered the drawing-room of her flat when he threw
himself at her feet, and poured forth his worship of her in the most
extravagant phrases.

"Look here, Mr. Kelson," she said at length, withdrawing the hand it
seemed as if he would never leave off kissing, "this is all very well;
but I daresay you make love to countless other girls in this same
fashion. How can I tell if you are really serious?"

"Don't I look as if I am?" he cried.

"One can never judge correctly by looks," she replied; "they are
terribly deceptive. You are very emphatic in your avowals of love, but
you say nothing about marriage."

"Then you do care for me! Jerusalem! How happy I should be if only I
thought that!"

"Think it, then," Lilian Rosenberg said, "and let us come to an
understanding. Can you afford to keep a wife--keep her, as I should
expect to be kept--plenty of new dresses, jewelry, theatres, balls,
motors, Ascot, Henley, Cowes?"

"I reckon I could do all that," Kelson replied. "I've just over a
hundred and fifty thousand pounds in the bank, and with this 'cure'
business, I'm taking on an average ten thousand per week. I would
settle a hundred thousand on you, and make you a handsome allowance--a
thousand a week--more if you wanted it."

"Well!" Lilian Rosenberg said after a slight pause, during which
Kelson had again seized her hand and was kissing it convulsively, "to
quote one of your Americanisms--I reckon I'll fix up with you. On one
condition, however."

"And that," Kelson murmured, still kissing her feverishly.

"That we marry a week to-day!"

Kelson dropped her hand as if he had been shot. "We can't!" he cried.
"The Compact!"

"Oh, damn the Compact!" Lilian Rosenberg said coolly. "You marry me
then--or not at all!"

"You are joking--you know what the Compact means!"

"I know what you think it means. For my own part I don't see that you
have the slightest reason to f