y gilded; and while Marthe was
putting the vase on the small table there was a ring at the outer
door. Marthe hurried off.

Christine said, kissing him again tenderly:

"Thou art a squanderer! Fine for me to tell thee not to buy costly
flowers! Thou has spent at least ten shillings for these. With ten
shillings--"

"No, no!" he interrupted her. "Five." It was a fib. He had paid half a
guinea for the few flowers, but he could not confess it.

They could hear a powerful voice indistinctly booming at the top of
the stairs. "Two callers on one afternoon!" G.J. reflected. And yet
she had told him she went out for the first time only the day before
yesterday! He scarcely liked it, but his reason rescued him from the
puerility of a grievance against her on this account. "And why not?
She is bound to be a marked success."

Marthe returned to the drawing-room and shut the door.

"Madame--" she began, slightly agitated.

"Speak, then!" Christine urged, catching her agitation.

"It is the police!"

G.J. had a shock. He knew many of the policemen who lurked in the dark
doorways of Piccadilly at night, had little friendly talks with them,
held them for excellent fellows. But a policeman invading the flat of
a courtesan, and himself in the flat, seemed a different being from
the honest stalwarts who threw the beams of lanterns on the key-holes
of jewellers' shops.

Christine steeled herself to meet the crisis with self-reliance. She
pointedly did not appeal to the male.

"Well, what is it that he wants?"

"He talks of the chimney. It appears this morning there was a chimney
on fire. But since we burn only anthracite and gas--He knows madame's
name."

There was a pause. Christine asked sharply and mysteriously:

"How much do you think?"

"If madame gave five pounds--having regard to the _chic_ of the
quarter."

Christine rushed into the bedroom and came back with a five-pound
note.

"Here! Chuck that at him--politely. Tell him we are very sorry."

"Yes, madame."

"But he'll never take it. You can't treat the London police like
that!" G.J. could not help expostulating as soon as Marthe had gone.
He feared some trouble.

"My poor friend!" Christine replied patronisingly. "Thou art not up
in these things. Marthe knows her affair--a woman very experienced in
London. He will take it, thy policeman. And if I do not deceive myself
no more chimneys will burn for about a year.... Ah! The police do not
wipe their no