"now or at any other time. Come!"

They went out together and he called a hansom. From the opposite
corner under the trees a man with his hat slouched over his eyes stood
and glowered at them.

_Chapter XX_

ANNA'S SURRENDER

"This is indeed a gala night," said Ennison, raising his glass, and
watching for a moment the golden bubbles. "Was it really only this
afternoon that I met you in St. James' Park?"

Anna nodded, and made a careful selection from a dish of quails.

"It was just an hour before teatime," she remarked. "I have had
nothing since, and it seems a very long time."

"An appetite like yours," he said resignedly, "is fatal to all
sentiment."

"Not in the least," she assured him. "I find the two inseparable."

He sighed.

"I have noticed," he said, "that you seem to delight in taking a
topsy-turvy view of life. It arises, I think, from an over developed
sense of humour. You would find things to laugh at even in Artemus
Ward."

"You do not understand me at all," she declared. "I think that you are
very dense. Besides, your remark is not in the least complimentary. I
have always understood that men avoid like the plague a woman with a
sense of humour."

So they talked on whilst supper was served, falling easily into the
spirit of the place, and yet both of them conscious of some new thing
underlying the gaiety of their tongues and manner. Anna, in her
strange striking way, was radiantly beautiful. Without a single
ornament about her neck, or hair, wearing the plainest of black gowns,
out of which her shoulders shone gleaming white, she was easily the
most noticeable and the most distinguished-looking woman in the room.
To-night there seemed to be a new brilliancy in her eyes, a deeper
quality in her tone. She was herself conscious of a recklessness of
spirits almost hysterical. Perhaps, after all, the others were right.
Perhaps she had found this new thing in life, the thing wonderful. The
terrors and anxieties of the last few months seemed to have fallen
from her, to have passed away like an ugly dream, dismissed with a
shudder even from the memory. An acute sense of living was in her
veins, even the taste of her wine seemed magical. Ennison too, always
handsome and _debonnair_, seemed transported out of his calm self. His
tongue was more ready, his wit more keen than usual. He said daring
things with a grace which made them irresistible, his eyes flashed
back upon her some eloquent but