at that sort of thing. He'll be furious. But it
will do him no end of good. Well, good-bye. But come back in and buy a
bottle, or I shall be let in for a shindy. In fact, you might buy two
bottles."

"So that's love!" said Audrey when the transaction was over and they were
in the entrance-hall again.

"No," said Miss Ingate. "That's marriage. And don't you forget it....
Hallo, Tommy!"

"You'd better not let Mr. Gilman hear me called Tommy in this hotel,"
laughed Miss Thompkins, who was attired with an unusual richness, as she
advanced towards Miss Ingate and Audrey. "And what are you doing here?" she
questioned Audrey.

"I'm staying here," said Audrey. "But I've only just arrived. I'm advance
agent for my husband. How are you? And what are _you_ doing here? I thought
you hated London."

"I came the day before yesterday," Tommy replied. "And I'm very fit. You
see, Mr. Gilman preferred us to be married in London. And I'd no objection.
So here I am. The wedding's to-morrow. You aren't very startled, are you?
Had you heard?"

"Well," said Audrey, "not what you'd call 'heard.' But I'd a sort of a kind
of a--"

"You come right over here, young woman."

"But I want to get my number."

"You come right over here right now," Tommy insisted. And in another
corner of the entrance-hall she spoke thus, and there was both seriousness
and fun in her voice: "Don't you run away with the idea that I'm taking
your leavings, young woman. Because I'm not. We all knew you'd lost your
head about Musa, and it was quite right of you. But you never had a chance
with Ernest, though you thought you had, after I'd met him. Admit I'm much
better suited for him than you'd have been. I'd only one difficulty, and
that was the nice boy Price, who wanted to drown himself for my beautiful
freckled face. That's all. Now you can go and get your number."

The incident might not have ended there had not Madame Piriac appeared in
the entrance-hall out of the interior of the hotel.

"He exacted my coming," said Madame Piriac privately to Audrey. "You know
how he is strange. He asks for a quiet wedding, but at the same time it
must be all that is most correct. There are things, he says, which demand a
woman.... I know four times nothing of the English etiquette. I have
abandoned my husband. And here I am. _Voila_! Listen. She has great skill
with him, _cette Tommy_. Nevertheless, I have the intention to counsel her
about her complexion. Impossible