the point, we'll tell everybody. Why
not?"

"Oh, but dearest! It was so nice it being a secret. It was the loveliest
thing in the world."

"Yes, it was jolly."

"Perhaps father will feel differently in the morning, and then you
can----"

"He won't," said George flatly. "You don't know what a state he's in. I
didn't tell you--he called me a spy in the house, a dirty spy. Likewise
a jackanapes. Doubtless a delicate illusion to my tender years."

"He _didn't_!"

"He did, honestly."

"So that was what upset you so!" Marguerite murmured. It was her first
admission that she had noticed his agitation.

"Did I look so upset, then?"

"George, you looked terrible. I felt the only thing to do was for us to
go out at once."

"Oh! But surely I wasn't so upset as all that?" said George, finding in
Marguerite's statement a reflection upon his ability to play the part of
an imperturbable man of the world. "Agg didn't seem to see anything."

"Agg doesn't know you like I do."

She insinuated her arm into his. He raised his hand and took hold of
hers. In the left pocket of his overcoat he could feel the somewhat
unwieldy key of the studio. He was happy. The domestic feel of the key
completed his happiness.

"Of course I can't stay on there," said he.

"At father's? Oh! I do wish father hadn't talked like that." She spoke
sadly, not critically.

"I suppose I must sleep there to-night. But I'm not going to have my
breakfast there to-morrow morning. No fear! I'll have it up town.
Lucas'll be able to put me up to some new digs. He always knows about
that sort of thing. Then I'll drive down and remove all my worldly in a
four-wheeler."

He spoke with jauntiness, in his role of male who is easily equal to any
situation. But she said in a low, tenderly commiserating voice:

"It's a shame!"

"Not a bit!" he replied. Then he suddenly stood still and brought her to
a halt. Under his erratic guidance they had turned along Dilke Street,
and northwards again, past the Botanical Garden. "And this is Paradise
Row!" he said, surveying the broad street which they had come into.

"Paradise Row?" she corrected him softly. "No, dear, it's Queen's Road.
It runs into Pimlico Road."

"I mean it used to be Paradise Row," he explained. "It was the most
fashionable street in Chelsea, you know. Everybody that was anybody
lived here."

"Oh! Really!" She showed an amiable desire to be interested, but her
interest did not survive more tha