y way a novelty for him--in clothes,
manners, accent, deportment, outlook on the world and on paint. He had
heard and read of such beings as Mrs. Alice Challice, and now he was in
direct contact with one of them. The whole affair struck him as
excessively odd, as a mad escapade on his part. Wisdom in him deemed it
ridiculous to prolong the encounter, but shy folly could not break
loose. Moreover she possessed the charm of her novelty; and there was
that in her which challenged the male in him.

"Well," she said, "I suppose we can't stand here for ever!"

The crowd had frittered itself away, and an attendant was closing and
locking the doors of St. George's Hall. He coughed.

"It's a pity it's Saturday and all the shops closed. But anyhow suppose
we walk along Oxford Street all the same? Shall we?" This from her.

"By all means."

"Now there's one thing I should like to say," she murmured with a calm
smile as they moved off. "You've no occasion to be shy with me. There's
no call for it. I'm just as you see me."

"Shy!" he exclaimed, genuinely surprised. "Do I seem shy to you?" He
thought he had been magnificently doggish.

"Oh, well," she said. "That's all right, then, if you _aren't._ I should
take it as a poor compliment, being shy with me. Where do you think we
can have a good talk? I'm free for the evening. I don't know about you."

Her eyes questioned his.

_No Gratuities_

At a late hour, they were entering, side by side, a glittering
establishment whose interior seemed to be walled chiefly in bevelled
glass, so that everywhere the curious observer saw himself and twisted
fractions of himself. The glass was relieved at frequent intervals by
elaborate enamelled signs which repeated, 'No gratuities.' It seemed
that the directors of the establishment wished to make perfectly clear
to visitors that, whatever else they might find, they must on no account
expect gratuities.

"I've always wanted to come here," said Mrs. Alice Challice vivaciously,
glancing up at Priam Farll's modest, middle-aged face.

Then, after they had successfully passed through a preliminary pair of
bevelled portals, a huge man dressed like a policeman, and achieving a
very successful imitation of a policeman, stretched out his hand, and
stopped them.

"In line, please," he said.

"I thought it was a restaurant, not a theatre," Priam whispered to Mrs.
Challice.

"So it is a restaurant," said his companion. "But I hear they're