y, have given him one dance. But instead all she did was to
shake with laughter as she saw him quivering in a corner held fast in the
clutch of the human steam engine. She heard the blows he was receiving;
they sounded like a hammer hitting wood; and then later she saw him
limping painfully from the room--probably in search of some Elliman's
embrocation. But, as I say, she didn't realise it. . . . She only
thought him a silly old man. . . ."

"Old," said Vane slowly. . . . "How old?"

"About fifty," said the girl vaguely. Then she looked at Vane. "She
found out later that he was forty-eight, to be exact."

"Not so very old after all," remarked Vane, pitching a used match into
the water, and stuffing down the tobacco in his pipe with unusual care.

"It was towards the end of the dance," she resumed, "that the man of
great wealth was introduced to the girl in grey, by the donor of the
feast. The band had gathered in all the coal-scuttles and pots it could,
and was hitting them hard with pokers when the historical meeting took
place. You see it was a Jazz band and they always economise by borrowing
their instruments in the houses they go to. . . ."

"And did she dance with him?" asked Vane.

"I don't think he even asked her to," said Joan. "But even as she went
off with a boy in the Flying Corps she realised that she was face to face
with a problem."

"Quick work," murmured Vane.

"Most of the big problems in life are quick," returned the girl. "You
see the man of great possessions was not accustomed to disguising his
feelings; and the girl--though she didn't show it--was never far removed
from the skeleton in her cupboard."

She fell silent, and for a while they neither of them spoke.

"It developed along the accepted lines, I suppose," remarked Vane at
length.

"Everything quite conventional," she answered. "A fortnight later he
suggested that she should honour him by accepting his name and wealth.
He has repeated the suggestions at frequent intervals since. . . ."

"Then she didn't say 'Yes' at once," said Vane softly.

"Ah! no," answered the girl. "And as a matter of fact she hasn't said it
yet."

"But sometimes o' nights," said Vane, "she lies awake and wonders. And
then she gets out of bed, and perhaps the moon is up, shining cold and
white on the water that lies in front of her window. And the trees are
throwing black shadows, and somewhere in the depths of an old patriarch
an owl is