you ring for a taxi from Farren's?"

"I tried to, but it's an apartment house and there was no one
downstairs to make the connection. Too late. So I footed it." She
yawned prodigiously. "I'm ready at last for my little bunk. Hope
you've enjoyed this more than I have. You'd be a scream at a petting
party."

Clavering paid his small account and they issued into the storm once
more. It was impossible to talk. In the taxi she went to sleep.
Thank Heaven! He had had enough of her. Odious brat. More than once
he had had a sudden vision of Mary Zattiany during that astonishing
conversation at the counter. The "past" she had suggested to his
tormented mind was almost literary by contrast. She, herself, a queen
granting favors, beside this little fashionable near-strumpet. They
didn't breathe the same air, nor walk on the same plane. Who, even if
this little fool were merely demi-vierge, would hesitate between them?
One played the game in the grand manner, the other like a glorified
gutter-snipe. But he was thankful for the diversion, and when he
reached his own bed he fell asleep immediately and did not turn over
for seven hours.

XXI

He had informed Madame Zattiany's butler over the telephone that he
would call that evening at half-past nine, but he returned to his rooms
after a day at the office with lagging steps. He dreaded another
evening in that library by the fire. It was beyond his imagination to
foresee how she would treat him, what role she would choose to play,
and although he was grimly determined to play whatever role she
assigned to him (for the present!), he hated the prospect. He was in
no mood for a "game." This wooing was like nothing his imagination had
ever prefigured. To be put on trial . . . to sit with the woman in the
great solitude of the house and the very air vibrating between
them . . . or frozen . . . self-conscious as a schoolboy up for
inspection . . . afraid of making a false move. . . . What in God's
name would they talk about? Politics? Books? Art? Banalities! . . .
he'd half a mind to go to Florida after all . . . or join Jim
Oglethorpe in South Carolina: he had a standing invitation . . . he'd
return by the next train; he'd felt as if existing in a vacuum all
day. . . .

When he reached his rooms he found his problem solved for the
moment--possibly. A telephone slip informed him that Madame Zattiany
would be at home, and a note from Mrs. Oglethorpe en