ost wonderful audience in the world. I do not want to shake
hands with many hundreds of people at that hateful reception. I think I
want nothing else in the world but you!"

She lay, for a moment, passive in his arms. He smoothed her hair and
kissed her tenderly. Then he led her back to her place upon the couch.
Her emotional mood, while it flattered him in a sense, did nothing to
quiet the little demons of unrest that pulled, every now and then, at
his heart-strings.

"What is this reception?" he asked.

She made a little grimace.

"It is a formal welcome from the English stage to the French company
that has come over to play at the new French theater," she told him.
"Sir Edward and I are to receive them. You will come, will you not?"

"I haven't an invitation," he told her.

"Invitation? I invite you. I am the hostess of the evening."

"Then I am not likely to refuse, am I?" he asked, smiling. "Shall I come
to the theater?"

"Come straight to the reception at the Whitehall Rooms," she begged.
"Sir Edward is calling for me, and Graillot will go down with us. Later,
if you care to, you can drive me home."

"Don't you think," he suggested, "that it would be rather a good
opportunity to announce our engagement?"

"Not to-night!" she pleaded. "You know, I cannot seem to believe it
myself except when I am with you and we are alone. It seems too
wonderful after all these years. Do you know, John, that I am nearly
thirty?"

He laughed.

"How pathetic! All the more reason, I should say, why we should let
people know about it as soon as possible."

"There is no particular hurry," she said, a little nervously. "Let me
get used to it myself. I don't think you will have to wait long.
Everything I have been used to doing and thinking seems to be crumbling
up around me. Last night I even hated my work, or at least part of it."

His eyes lit up with genuine pleasure.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you say that," he declared. "I
don't hate your work--I've got over that. I don't think I am narrow
about it. I admire Graillot, and his play is wonderful. But I think, and
I always shall think, that the denouement in that third act is
damnable!"

She nodded understandingly.

"I am beginning to realize how you must feel," she confessed. "We won't
talk about it any more now. Drive me to the theater, will you? I want to
be there early to-night, just to get everything ready for changing
afterward."

The teleph