you to have lunch with me one day in
town--in your official capacity, of course. . . ."

"If you were the last man in the world, and I was starving, I wouldn't
lunch with you in any capacity." Her breast was rising and falling
stormily.

"At any rate, it's something to know where we stand," said Vane
pleasantly.

"If I'd realised that you were merely a cad--and an outsider of the worst
type--do you suppose that I would have talked--would have allowed. . . ."
The words died away in her throat, and her shoulders shook. She turned
away, biting furiously at her handkerchief with her teeth. "Go away--oh!
go away; I hate you."

But Vane did not go away; he merely stood there looking at her with a
faint, half-quizzical smile on his lips.

"Joan," he said, after a moment, "I'm thinking I have played the deuce
with your general routine. All the earlier performances will be in the
nature of an anti-climax after this. But--perhaps, later on, when my
abominable remarks are not quite so fresh in your mind, you won't regard
them as quite such an insult as you do now. Dreadful outsider though I
am--unpardonably caddish though it is to have criticised your war
work--especially when I have appreciated it so much--will you try to
remember that it would have been far easier and pleasanter to have done
the other thing?"

Slowly her eyes came round to his face, and he saw that they were
dangerously bright. "What other thing?" she demanded.

"Carried on with the game; the game that both you and I know so well.
Hunting, cricket and making love. . . . Is it not written in 'Who's
Who'--unless that interesting publication is temporarily out of print?"

"It strikes me," the girl remarked ominously, "that to your caddishness
you add a very sublime conceit."

Vane grinned. "Mother always told me I suffered from swelled
head. . . ." He pointed to the envelope still unaddressed, lying between
them on the writing table. "After which slight digression--do you mind?"

She picked up the pen, and sat down once again. "I notice your tone
changes when you want me to help you."

Vane made no answer. "The address is Mrs. Vernon, 14, Culman Terrace,
Balham," he remarked quietly.

"I trust she is doing war work that pleases you," sneered the girl. She
handed him the envelope, and then, as she saw the blaze in his eyes, she
caught her breath in a little quick gasp.

"As far as I know," he answered grimly, "Mrs. Vernon is endeavouri