f a good stock as well. We've been very good chums since that
first row. Fellows who fight as boys generally are."

"Oh, I daresay he's all right, but I didn't like it," said Miss Carol,
leaning back in the cab. "And now suppose you tell me something more
about yourself."

When the cab pulled up at the corner of Warwick Gardens and he said
good-night, he asked her for a kiss. She blushed like a
fourteen-year-old school girl as she replied:

"That's a great compliment, Vane, for I know how you mean it. But if you
don't mind I really think I'd rather not, at least not just yet. You
see, after all we've only known each other two or three hours. Wait
until you know me at least a little better before you ask again, and
then perhaps we'll see."

"Well, I daresay you're right, Miss Modesty," he laughed, as he got out.
"In fact, you always seem to be right. Good-night, Carol."

"Good-night, Vane." As he stepped backwards from the cab she leant
forward and smiled and waved her hand. A gentleman walking quickly from
the direction of the bridge looked up and saw her pretty laughing face
as the light of a lamp fell upon it. He stopped almost as suddenly as
though he had run up against some invisible obstacle, and passed his
hand across his eyes. Then the cab doors closed, the face vanished back
into the shadow of the interior, and, to his utter amazement, Maxwell
heard his father's voice say:

"God bless my soul. What a marvellous likeness!"

CHAPTER II.

"Well, Vane!"

"Well, dad!"

"May I ask who that young lady in the cab with you was?"

Vane saw at once that he was in for it, and even if he had wished for
any concealment, it was impossible under the circumstances. As a matter
of fact, however, he had already made up his mind to tell his father the
whole story of his little adventure, and so he said very gravely and
deliberately:

"That, dad, is a young lady whose acquaintance I made to-night at the
Palace. She nearly fainted in the crush just after the Biograph was
over. She happened to be close behind me, and so of course she held on
to me. I took her into one of the bars and gave her a brandy and soda.
Then we noticed mutually how curiously like each other we were, and
then--well, then I asked her to supper and she came. We have just driven
here from the Trocadero. She has gone on to where she lives in Melville
Gardens, Brook Green. I can tell you a lot more about her afterwards, if
you like."

Sir A