k to dress for a dinner Harry was giving before going
to a dance, Daphne felt a tinge of sentiment and regret for the idyllic
happiness in the garden, and began to count the hours until they should
meet alone again. The glamour always returned an hour or so after they
had been separated.

CHAPTER XVIII

AT THE CARLTON

With characteristic amiability, combined with that courage which had
caused impatient people, who snubbed her in vain, to say she had the
hide of a rhinoceros, Miss Luscombe had accepted the blow of Rathbone's
proposal--the proposal which she had taken for an offer of marriage, but
which was really an offer to go on the stage. She set to work at once
making little efforts (most of which she knew to be futile) to arrange
the matter. After all, if she should succeed in getting him some sort of
a part, mightn't he, out of gratitude?... And she saw visions. Again, he
had evidently got it very badly, this mania for acting and dressing up,
and he had really quite enough money, if he chose to devote it to this
object only; why shouldn't he take a theatre--make himself the manager
and _jeune premier_, or, for the matter of that, _vieux dernier_--it
really didn't matter--and let her be the leading lady? That was if he
failed in every other scheme. She wrote letters to various people whom
she knew on the stage, mentioning Rathbone's enormous willingness to
take _anything_, his gentlemanly appearance, and, she felt sure, really
_some_ talent, though no experience. Most people took no notice, but
after a while she received an offer for him to play one of the gentlemen
in the chorus of _Our Miss Gibbs_ in a second-rate little touring
company of the smaller northern provincial towns.

It was an excuse for an interview, certainly; but this for a man who
wished to play Romeo! And if, in his enthusiasm, he should actually
accept it, it would take him away from her. However, hearing that she
had some news for him, he, in his delighted gratitude, asked her to tea
at the Carlton.

* * * * *

They were seated in the Palm Court eating their tea-cakes and sandwiches
to the sound of "The Teddy Bear's Picnic," which made one feel cheerful
and reckless, followed by "Simple Aveu," a thin, sentimental solo on the
violin that made one feel resigned and melancholy. It was played by a
man with a three-cornered face and a very bald head, who gazed at the
ceiling as if in a kind of swoon--a swoon tha