ou must _go_." It was very familiar, but, as the other
voices fortuitously grew hushed, he heard a new pendant. "But you know
_her_? Babs. Babs Neave. Barbara Neave. Now don't pretend you don't know
Lady Barbara Neave! Every one tells me that they're desperately in love
with each other. Of course Crawleigh wouldn't _hear_ of it, but he
doesn't know what to do. You know what the girl is! If you oppose her.
. . . It's an absurd position. You must come along and meet them. And
I'll arrange a little party. I think you'd be amused."

"All the restaurants are so crowded nowadays," said Eric.

"But if you telephone for a table----"

He was grown too fond of Barbara to provide people like Lady Maitland
with an excuse for saying that he was compromising her; and he was not
going to pave the way for an unpleasant altercation with Lord Crawleigh
(when he would have nothing to say for himself).

"I'll dine with you, if you like," he suggested.

5

On the morning of the day when "The Bomb-Shell" was to be produced, Eric
found his diary overflowing into a new volume. Before snapping the lock
for the last time and burying the book in the little steel safe which he
had had built behind one of the panels in the dining-room, he turned the
pages for ten months, starting with the first night of his first play
and ending with the dress rehearsal of the second. The ten months'
record was so engrossing that he lay in bed, smoking and reading,
instead of ringing for his secretary. One day he had been an unknown
journalist; the next--in a phrase of which he could never tire--he awoke
to find himself famous. Half-forgotten acquaintances who had sent him
cards for dances now invited him to dinners at which he was courted and
instantly handed on. At first he had written down, with more pleasure
than cynicism, the complimentary phrases which had tickled his vanity;
that had soon palled, and the compliments were monotonously framed;
after two months he only recorded such triumphs as when old Farquaharson
invited him to call. "_I would give much to have written your play; I
would have given anything to write it at your age._" Some day, when
Barbara was in a disparaging mood, he would shew her that jealously
guarded letter.

An idle whim sent his fingers searching for the Poynter dinner where he
had first met her. Since that night her influence, suspected but never
established, had caused "_Dined with Lady Poynter_" to be a frequent
entry. E