plainly?"

"Of course I don't," he replied, his features distorted, rather than
graced, by a smile.

The girl approached him, arms akimbo, but, by virtue of a frank look,
suggesting more than usual of womanhood.

"You've got to be either one thing or the other. She doesn't care
_that_"--a snap of the fingers--"for this man Otway, and she knows he
doesn't care for her. But she's playing him against you, and you must
expect more of it. You ought to make up your mind. It isn't fair to
her."

"Thank you," murmured Kite, reddening a little. "It's kind of you."

"Well, I hope it is. But she'd be furious if she guessed I'd said such
a thing. I only do it because it's for her good as much as yours.
Things oughtn't to drag on, you know; it isn't fair to a girl like
that."

Kite thrust his hands into his pockets, and drew himself up to a full
five feet eleven.

"I'll go away," he said. "I'll go and live in Paris for a bit."

"That's for _you_ to decide. Of course if you feel like that--it's none
of my business, I don't pretend to understand _you_; I'm not quite sure
I understand _her_. You're a queer couple. All I know is, it's gone on
long enough, and it isn't fair to a girl like Olga. She isn't the sort
that can doze through a comfortable engagement of ten or twelve years,
and surely you know that."

"I'll go away," said Kite again, nodding resolutely.

He turned again to the poster, and Miss Bonnicastle resumed her work.
Thus Olga found them when she came back.

"I've asked him to come at three," she said. "You'll be out then,
Bonnie. When you come in we'll put the kettle on, and all have tea."
She chanted it, to the old nursery tune. "Of course you'll come as
well"--she addressed Kite--"say about four. It'll be jolly!"

So, on the following afternoon, Olga sat alone, in readiness for her
visitor. She had paid a little more attention than usual to her
appearance, but was perfectly self-possessed; a meeting with Piers
Otway had never yet quickened her pulse, and would not do so to-day. If
anything, she suffered a little from low spirits, conscious of having
played a rather disingenuous part before Kite, and not exactly knowing
to what purpose she had done so. It still rained; it had been gloomy
for several days. Looking at the heavy sky above the gloomy street,
Olga had a sense of wasted life. She asked herself whether it would not
have been better, on the decline of her love-fever, to go back into the
so-calle