take me out
shopping. I'll ring for another cocktail."

He rose to his feet and stepped toward the bell. Then it suddenly
occurred to him that as yet she had not spoken. He turned quickly
around.

"Sophy," he exclaimed, "what is the matter? Aren't you going to
congratulate me?"

She was sitting bolt upright upon the couch, her fingers buried in the
cushions, her eyes closed. He moved quickly across toward her.

"I say, Sophy, what's wrong?" he asked hastily. "Aren't you well?"

She waved him away.

"Don't touch me," she begged. "I went without my lunch--nearly missed
the train, as it was. I was feeling a little queer when I came, and
dropping that glass gave me a shock. Let me drink yours, may I?"

He handed it to her, and she drained its contents. Then she smiled up at
him weakly.

"What a shame!" she said. "Just as you were telling me your wonderful
news! I can scarcely believe it--you and Louise!"

John sat down beside her.

"Louise does not want it talked about for a day or two," he observed.
"We have not made any plans yet."

"Is Louise going to remain upon the stage?"

"Probably, if she wishes it," he replied; "but I want to travel first
for a year or so, before we settle definitely upon anything. I did not
think that you would be so much surprised, Sophy."

"Perhaps I am not really," she admitted. "One thinks of a thing as being
possible, for a long time, and when it actually comes--well, it takes
you off your feet just the same. You know," she added slowly, "there are
no two people in this world so far apart in their ways as you and
Louise."

"That is true from one point of view," he confessed. "From another, I
think that there are no two people so close together. Of course, it
seems wonderful to me, and I suppose it does to you, Sophy, that she
should care for a man of my type. She is so brilliant and so talented,
such a woman of this latter-day world, the world of which I am about as
ignorant as a man can be. Perhaps, after all, that is the real
explanation of it. Each of us represents things new to the other."

"Did you say that no one has been told yet--no one at all?"

"No one except Stephen," John assented. "That is why I went up to
Cumberland, to tell him."

"You have not told the prince?" Sophy asked, dropping her voice a
little. "Louise has not told him?"

"Not that I know of. Why do you ask?" John inquired, looking into
Sophy's face.

"I don't know," she answered. "It just occ