.

"You have given me the information I require," she said. "Thank you
once more, and good morning."

Jacob lost his head for a moment. It was impossible to let her drift
away like this.

"Miss Bultiwell," he protested, "you are very hard on me. I wish you
would allow me a few words of explanation. Will you--will you lunch
with me?"

She looked him up and down, and not even the consciousness of those
well-chosen and suitable clothes, of his very handsome bachelor flat
at the Milan, his wonderful Rolls-Royce, and his summer retreat at
Marlingden, with its acre of roses, helped him to retain an atom of
self-confidence. He was no longer the man to whom the finger of envy
pointed. The glance withered him as though he had indeed been a
criminal.

"Certainly not," she answered.

She made her way towards the door, and Jacob watched her helplessly.
In her plain tweed coat and skirt, her sensible but homely shoes, her
cheap little grey tam-o'-shanter hat, with its single yellow quill,
she was just as attractive as she had been in the days when the first
modiste in London had taken a pride in dressing her. She reached the
door and passed out before Jacob had been able to make up his mind to
step forward and open it for her. He gazed at the spot where she had
disappeared, with blank face and unseeing eyes. Suddenly the door was
reopened and closed again. She came towards him very deliberately.

"Mr. Pratt," she said, "I am a very selfish and a very greedy person.
I have lunched most days, for the last three months, at an A. B. C.
shop opposite the office where I am working, and I hate the food and
everything about that sort of place. If I accept your invitation, will
you allow me to order exactly what I please, and remember that it is
sheer greed which induces me even to sit down in the same room with
you?"

Jacob sighed as he rose and stretched out his hand for his hat.

"Come on any terms you please," he answered, with eager humility.

CHAPTER VIII

Miss Sybil Bultiwell showed that she had a very pretty taste in food
even if her weaknesses in other directions were undiscoverable. Seated
at a table for two in Jacob's favourite corner at the Ritz grill-room,
she ordered langouste with mayonnaise, a French chicken with salad, an
artichoke, a vanilla ice, and some wonderful forced strawberries. She
drank a cocktail and shared to a moderate extent the bottle of very
excellent dry champagne which her companion i