about Pelham?"

"Pelham has no prior claim," he answered. "As soon as she is safe he
shall know the whole truth. I would tell him at this moment but that I
am a little afraid of him. He would never understand, as we can, the
intricacy of the situation. And now--to the prosaic."

He rang the bell.

"Groves," he told the butler, "I am hungry. Bring me in anything you can
rake up for supper on a tray, and a pint of champagne."

Spencer raised his eyebrows and smiled. Duncombe nodded.

"For her, of course," he said. "I am going to take it in, and I want you
to stay here. It is past eleven o'clock already."

CHAPTER XXIII

HER FIRST KISS

"I was never," she declared, "quite so pleased to see any one in all my
life. I was wondering whether it would occur to you that I was
starving."

He set the tray down for her, placed a chair in front of the table, and
busied himself opening the wine. All the time he was looking at her.

"Whatever have you been doing to yourself?" he asked at length.

She laughed softly.

"Oh, I had to amuse myself somehow," she answered. "I've done my hair a
new way, rearranged all my ornaments, and really I don't think a man has
a right to such a delightful manicure set. I felt terribly nervous in
the lavatory, though. I could hear some one in the billiard-room all the
time."

"That's all right!" he declared. "I've locked the door there, and have
the key in my pocket. No one can get in from that side."

"Please talk, and don't watch me," she begged. "I'm ashamed to be so
hungry."

He smiled and helped her to some more chicken. If he talked he was
scarcely conscious of what he said. All the time his eyes kept straying
towards her. She had taken off her jacket and was dressed simply enough
in a blouse of some soft white material and a dark skirt. Everything,
from the ornaments at her neck, the dull metal waistband, and the trim
shoes, seemed to him to be carefully chosen, and the best of their sort.
She wore no rings, and her fingers had the rosy pinkness of health. If
she had seemed graceful to him before in the drawing-room of Runton
Place, and surrounded by some of the most beautiful women in the
country, she seemed more than ever so now, seated in the somewhat worn
chair of his little studio. The color, too, seemed to have come back to
her cheeks. She seemed to have regained in some measure her girlishness.
Her eyes were ever ready to laugh into his. She chattered away as thou