ffee, and they
would chat, and there was an end. She was seemingly well content. She did
her business, and they would even speak of it. "I cannot come to-night,
mon ami," she would say; "I am busy." She would nod to him as she passed
out of the restaurant with someone else, and he would smile back at her.
Nor did he ever remonstrate or urge her to change her ways. And she
knew why. He had no key with which to open her cage.

Once, truly, he attempted it, and it was she who refused the glittering
thing. He rarely came uninvited to her flat, for obvious reasons; but one
night she heard him on the stairs as she got ready for bed. He was
walking unsteadily, and she thought at first that he had been drinking.
She opened to him with the carelessness her life had taught her, her
costume off, and her black hair all about her shoulders. "Go in and wait,
Peterr," she said; "I come."

She had slipped on a coloured silk wrap, and gone in to the sitting-room
to find him pacing up and down. She smiled. "Sit down, mon ami," she
said; "I will make the coffee. See, it is ready. Mais vraiment, you shall
drink cafe noir to-night. And one leetle glass of this--is it not so?"
and she took a green bottle of peppermint liqueur from the cupboard.

"Coffee, Louise," he said, "but not the other. I don't want it."

She turned and looked more closely at him then. "Non," she said, "pardon.
But sit you down. Am I to have the wild beast prowling up and down in my
place?"

"That's just it, Louise," he cried; "I am a wild beast to-night. I can't
stand it any longer. Kiss me."

He put his arms round her, and bent her head back, studying her French
and rather inscrutable eyes, her dark lashes, her mobile mouth, her long
white throat. He put his hand caressingly upon it, and slid his fingers
beneath the loose lace that the open wrap exposed. "Dear," he said, "I
want you to-night."

"To-night, cherie?" she questioned.

"Yes, now," he said hotly. "And why not? You give to other men--why not
to me, Louise?"

She freed herself with a quick gesture, and, brave heart, she laughed
merrily. The devil must have started at that laugh, and the angels of God
sung for joy. "Ah, non," she cried, "It is the mistake you make. I _sell_
myself to other men. But you--you are my friend; I cannot sell myself to
you."

He did not understand altogether why she quibbled; how should he have
done? But lie was ashamed. He slid into the familiar chair and ran his
finger