--"

"Never mind about that now," said Beth, yawning frankly. "Everybody
has gone to bed and forgotten us, I suppose. I shall have to let you
out."

She gathered the evening cloak she had come back in from the theatre
about her as she spoke, and led the way. He let her open the hall-door
for him. It was grey daylight in the street. At the foot of the steps
a policeman was standing on the pavement making a note in a little
book.

"Is it any use whistling for a hansom at this hour?" Beth asked.

The policeman looked up at her. "I'll try, miss, if you like," he
said.

He whistled several times, but there was no response, and Alfred
Cayley Pounce at last crammed his hat down on his head with a peevish
show of impatience, and walked off down the street, without a word of
leave-taking. The fact that Beth was sleepy had wounded his vanity
more than any word she had said. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders
as she watched him depart, then went down on to the pavement and
strolled about, enjoying the freshness. The policeman kept watch and
ward, meanwhile, at the open door, and, before she went in, Beth stood
and talked to him a little in her pretty kindly way. She found his
tone and manner in their simple directness strengthening and
refreshing to the mind after the tortuous posings of Mr. Alfred Cayley
Pounce.

CHAPTER XLIX

At breakfast next morning Beth described the way in which Mr. Alfred
Cayley Pounce had forced his attentions upon her the night before. Mr.
Kilroy was exceedingly angry. "He shall not come into any house of
mine again," he declared, and gave the old butler Roberts, who
happened to be the only servant in the room at the moment, orders to
that effect. "Do you mean to say," he asked Beth, "that the fellow had
the assurance to tell you he had actually been hanging about the
house?"

"He seemed rather proud of that, as of something poetical and
romantic," Beth answered.

"I suppose the illness was all an excuse," Angelica observed.

"I don't know," Beth said. "He certainly looked ill, but he's a poor
neurotic creature now, and might easily work himself up into a state
of hysterical collapse, I should think. What was your impression,
Roberts?"

"He looked real bad, ma'am; and well he might, the way he's been goin'
on, 'anging about 'alf the night We've all seen im," Roberts rejoined
imperturbably.

"Why didn't you report it to me?" Mr. Kilroy wanted to know.

"Well, sir, I couldn't