acle into the
room, searching the gloom for them.

It fell, warm, across her upturned throat, in the half light.

For her head lay back on his shoulder; his head was bent down, lips
pressed to the white hands crushed fragrantly between his own.

A star came out and looked at them with astonishment; in a little while
the sky was thronged with little stars, all looking through the window at
them.

Her maid knocked, backed out hastily and fled, distracted. Then Ferdinand
arrived with a plumber.

Later the butler came. They did not notice him until he ventured to cough
and announce dinner.

The interruptions were very annoying, particularly when she was summoned
to the telephone to speak to her father.

"What is it, dad?" she asked impatiently.

"Are you all right?"

"Oh, yes," she answered, carelessly; "we are all right, dad. Goodbye."

"We? Who the devil is 'We'?"

"Mr. Vanderdynk and I. We're taking my maid and coming down to Tuxedo
this evening together. I'm in a hurry now."

"What!!!"

"Oh, it's all right, dad. Here, Killian, please explain things to my
father."

Vanderdynk released her hand and picked up the receiver as though it had
been a live wire.

"Is that you, Mr. Carr?" he began--stopped short, and stood listening,
rigid, bewildered, turning redder and redder as her father's fluency
increased. Then, without a word, he hooked up the receiver.

"Is it all right?" she asked calmly. "Was dad--vivacious?"

The young man said: "I'd rather go back into that elevator than go to
Tuxedo.... But--I'm going."

"So am I," said Bushwyck Carr's daughter, dropping both hands on her
lover's shoulders.... "Was he really very--vivid?"

"Very."

The telephone again rang furiously.

He bent his head; she lifted her face and he kissed her.

After a while the racket of the telephone annoyed them, and they slowly
moved away out of hearing.

VIII

"IN HEAVEN AND EARTH"

_The Green Mouse Stirs_

"I've been waiting half an hour for you," observed Smith, dryly, as
Beekman Brown appeared at the subway station, suitcase in hand.

"It was a most extraordinary thing that detained me," said Brown,
laughing, and edging his way into the ticket line behind his friend where
he could talk to him across his shoulder; "I was just leaving the office,
Smithy, when Snuyder came in with a card."

"Oh, all right--of course, if----"

"No, it was not a client; I must be honest with you."

"Then you had a ter