but it seems to me that if by any
chance I did care for a man--not that it is in the least presumable that
I ever shall--but if I did, why, then, no. He couldn't get rid of me,
not unless he tried very hard, but if he didn't, then no matter what I
heard, no matter how true it might be, I would cling to his coat-tails,
that is, if he wore them, and if, also, he cared for a ninny like me."

Cassy paused, shook her docked hair and solemnly resumed: "Which, of
course, he couldn't."

"I knew you would say that."

"Say what?" Previously flushed, she reddened. But there is a God. The
room had grown dim.

"That you wouldn't cut and run."

She could have slapped him. "Then why did you ask me?"

Lennox blew a ring of smoke.

"To have you see it as I do. To have you see that at the first flurry
Miss Austen ran to cover. I am quite sure I could show her that she ran
too quick, but I am equally sure it is a blessing that she did run. It
is not ambitious of a man to want a girl who will stand her ground.
Sooner or later some other flurry would have knocked the ground from
under and then it might have been awkward. This one let me out."

He stood up, opened the window, dropped the cigar from it. The cigar
might have been Margaret Austen.

"What are your plans?" he asked and sat again.

Ah, how much safer that was! Cassy grabbed at it.

"You are the third person to ask me. First, Mr. Jones. Then--then----"
But she did not want to mention Dunwoodie or anything about the great
cascade of gorgeous follies and she jumped them both. "Then an agent. He
asked me yesterday and to-day he had a contract for me and a cheque in
advance. He is a very horrid little man but so decent!"

"When does it begin?"

"The engagement? Next week. What plans have you?"

"A few that have been made for me. Presently we sail."

"For France?"

"For France."

It was cooler now, at least her face was, and she got up and switched
the light.

"I wish I might go, too," she told him. "But I lack the training to be
nurse and the means to be vivandiere--canteener, I think they call it."
She hesitated and added, "Shall I see you before you go?"

But now from the phonograph in the neighbourly flat, the _Non te
scordar_ drifted, sung nobly by some fat tenor who probably loathed it.

Lennox, who had risen with her, asked: "May I come to-morrow?"

The aria enveloped them and for a moment Cassy trilled in.

"Perhaps to-morrow you will sing for me," h