r, then," he proposed.

Sophy sighed as she collected the half-empty chocolate-boxes.

"What a pity I've eaten so many! They'd have saved me a luncheon
to-morrow."

"Greedy child," Louise laughed, "sighing for want of an appetite! I
think we'll insist upon a taxi this time. I don't like overcrowded
streets. Where shall we take him to, Sophy? You know the supper places
better than I do."

"Luigi's," Sophy declared firmly. "The only place in London."

They drove toward the Strand. John looked around him with interest as
they entered the restaurant.

"I've been here before," he said, as they passed through the doors.

"Explain yourself at once," Louise insisted.

"It was eight years ago, when I was at Oxford," he told them. "We were
here on the boat-race night. I remember," he added reminiscently, "that
some of us were turned out. Then we went on to--"

"Stop!" Louise interrupted sternly. "I am horrified! The one thing I did
not suspect you of, Mr. Strangewey, was a past."

"Well, it isn't a very lurid one," he assured them. "That was very
nearly the only evening about town I have ever been guilty of."

Luigi, who had come forward to welcome Sophy, escorted them to one of
the best tables.

"You must be very nice to this gentleman, Luigi," she said. "He is a
very great friend of mine, just arrived in London. He has come up on
purpose to see me, and we shall probably decide to make this our
favorite restaurant."

"I shall be vairy happy," Luigi declared, with a bow.

"I am beginning to regret, Mr. Strangewey, that I ever introduced you to
Sophy," Louise remarked, as she sank back into her chair. "You won't
believe that all my friends are as frivolous as this, will you?"

"They aren't," Sophy proclaimed confidently. "I am the one person who
succeeds in keeping Louise with her feet upon the earth. She has never
had supper here before. Dry biscuits, hot milk, and a volume of poems
are her relaxation after the theater. She takes herself too seriously."

"I wonder if I do!" Louise murmured, as she helped herself to caviar.

She was suddenly pensive. Her eyes seemed to be looking out of the
restaurant. Sophy was exchanging amenities with a little party of
friends at the next table.

"One must sometimes be serious," John remarked, "or life would have no
poise at all."

"I have a friend who scolds me," she confided. "Sometimes he almost
loses patience with me. He declares that my attitude toward life is too
a