uggling to resist. Her craving for the keen
stimulant was forever conflicting with that other craving for sleep--the
midnight craving which only the little phial in her hand could still. But
today, at any rate, the tea could hardly be too strong: she counted on it
to pour warmth and resolution into her empty veins.

As she leaned back before him, her lids drooping in utter lassitude,
though the first warm draught already tinged her face with returning
life, Rosedale was seized afresh by the poignant surprise of her beauty.
The dark pencilling of fatigue under her eyes, the morbid blue-veined
pallour of the temples, brought out the brightness of her hair and lips,
as though all her ebbing vitality were centred there. Against the dull
chocolate-coloured background of the restaurant, the purity of her head
stood out as it had never done in the most brightly-lit ball-room. He
looked at her with a startled uncomfortable feeling, as though her beauty
were a forgotten enemy that had lain in ambush and now sprang out on him
unawares.

To clear the air he tried to take an easy tone with her. "Why, Miss Lily,
I haven't seen you for an age. I didn't know what had become of you."

As he spoke, he was checked by an embarrassing sense of the complications
to which this might lead. Though he had not seen her he had heard of her;
he knew of her connection with Mrs. Hatch, and of the talk resulting from
it. Mrs. Hatch's MILIEU was one which he had once assiduously frequented,
and now as devoutly shunned.

Lily, to whom the tea had restored her usual clearness of mind, saw what
was in his thoughts and said with a slight smile: "You would not be
likely to know about me. I have joined the working classes."

He stared in genuine wonder. "You don't mean--? Why, what on earth are
you doing?"

"Learning to be a milliner--at least TRYING to learn," she hastily
qualified the statement.

Rosedale suppressed a low whistle of surprise. "Come off--you ain't
serious, are you?"

"Perfectly serious. I'm obliged to work for my living."

"But I understood--I thought you were with Norma Hatch."

"You heard I had gone to her as her secretary?"

"Something of the kind, I believe." He leaned forward to refill her cup.

Lily guessed the possibilities of embarrassment which the topic held for
him, and raising her eyes to his, she said suddenly: "I left her two
months ago."

Rosedale continued to fumble awkwardly with the tea-pot, and she felt