uous
young man."

"I wasn't knocking him," said Barres, laughing, "but he falls in love
with every pretty woman he meets. I'm merely warning you."

"Thank you, Garry," she smiled. She gave him her hand again, pulled
the rose-coloured cloak around her bare shoulders, ran across the
sidewalk to the taxi, and whispered to the driver.

"You'll telephone me when you get home?" he reminded her, baffled but
smiling.

She laughed and nodded. The cab wheeled out into the street, backed,
turned, and sped away eastward.

* * * * *

Half an hour later his telephone rang:

"Garry, dear?"

"Is it you, Thessa?"

"Yes. I'm going to bed.... Tell Mr. Westmore that I'm not at all sure
I shall meet him at the Ritz on Monday."

"He'll go, anyway."

"Will he? What devotion. What faith in woman! What a lively capacity
for hope eternal! What vanity! Well, then, tell him he may take his
chances."

"I'll tell him. But I think you might make a date with me, too, you
little fraud!"

"Maybe I will. Maybe I'll drop in to see you unexpectedly some
morning. And don't let me catch _you_ philandering in your studio with
some pretty woman!"

"No fear, Thessa."

"I'm not at all sure. And your little model, Dulcie, is dangerously
attractive."

"Piffle! She's a kid!"

"Don't be too sure of that, either! And tell Mr. Westmore that I _may_
keep my engagement. And then again I may not! Good-night, Garry,
dear!"

"Good-night!"

* * * * *

Walking slowly back to extinguish the lights in the studio before
retiring to his own room for the night, Barres noticed a piece of
paper on the table under the lamp, evidently a fragment from the torn
letter.

The words "Ferez Bey" and "Murtagh" caught his eye before he realised
that it was not his business to decipher the fragment.

So he lighted a match, held the shred of letter paper to the flame,
and let it burn between his fingers until only a blackened cinder fell
to the floor.

But the two names were irrevocably impressed on his mind, and he found
himself wondering who these men might be, as he stood by his bed,
undressing.

XIV

PROBLEMS

The weather was turning hot in New York, and by the middle of the week
the city sweltered.

Barres, dropping his brushes and laying aside a dozen pictures in all
stages of incompletion; and being, otherwise, deeply bitten by the
dangerously enchanting art of Manship--dange