ch," he confessed. "It comes somehow and goes every way."

"You give the effect of spending it with graceful ease. Have you got
much?"

"A little dribble of an income of my own. I make, I suppose, about a
quarter of what your salary is."

"One doesn't readily imagine you ever being scrimped. You give the
effect of pros--no, not of prosperity; of--well--absolute ease. It's
quite different."

"Much nicer."

"Do you know what they call you, around town?"

"Didn't know I had attained the pinnacle of being called anything,
around town."

"They call you the best-dressed first-nighter in New York."

"Oh, damn!" said Banneker fervently.

"That's fame, though. I know plenty of men who would give half of their
remaining hairs for it."

"I don't need the hairs, but they can have it."

"Then, too, you know, I'm an asset."

"An asset?"

"Yes. To you, I mean." She pursed her fingers upon the tip of her firm
little chin and leaned forward. "Our being seen so much together. Of
course, that's a brashly shameless thing to say. But I never have to
wear a mask for you. In that way you're a comfortable person."

"You do have to furnish a diagram, though."

"Yes? You're not usually stupid. Whether you try for it or not--and I
think there's a dash of the theatrical in your make-up--you're a
picturesque sort of animal. And I--well, I help out the picture; make
you the more conspicuous. It isn't your good looks alone--you're
handsome as the devil, you know, Ban," she twinkled at him--"nor the
super-tailored effect which you pretend to despise, nor your fame as a
gun-man, though that helps a lot.... I'll give you a bit of tea-talk:
two flappers at The Plaza. 'Who's that wonderful-looking man over by the
palm?'--'Don't you know him? Why, that's Mr. Banneker.'--'Who's he; and
what does he do? Have I seen him on the stage?'--'No, indeed! I don't
know what he does; but he's an ex-ranchman and he held off a gang of
river-pirates on a yacht, all alone, and killed eight or ten of them.
Doesn't he look it!'"

"I don't go to afternoon teas," said the subject of this sprightly
sketch, sulkily.

"You will! If you don't look out. Now the same scene several years
hence. Same flapper, answering same question: 'Who's Banneker? Oh, a
reporter or something, on one of the papers.' _Et voila tout_!"

"Suppose you were with me at the Plaza, as an asset, several years
hence?"

"I shouldn't be--several years hence."

Banneker smiled radian