cy. Two or
three months without salary meant debts piling up, clothes in ribbons,
and no end of hectic worries.

"I think you've got a decidedly wrong impression of my friendship for
Mr. Stillman," she said, after some deliberation. "I really know him
only slightly. He was good enough, or rather I should say Mrs. Condor
was good enough, to include me in a little musical evening. That was on
the night you saw me at the Palace. We dropped down for a dance or two
after the music was over. I'd never been to such a place before, and I
dare say I'll never go again. It was just one of those experiences that
come to a person out of a clear sky. It's over as quickly as a shower."

"Oh, don't you worry! There'll be other showers. I'm going to see to
that. You know, the more I talk to you the more amazing you are....
Fancy your graduating from dinky church things into Stillman musicales,
and Palace dansants, and young Edington, and old lady Condor, all of a
sudden ... and getting away with it as if you were an old hand at the
game. Say, if you're that apt I'll give you a post-graduate course in
high life that'll make your hair curl forty-seven ways. I don't mean
anything vulgar or common ... _you_ understand. I'm a gentleman, Miss
Robson, at that."

He stopped for a moment to ring the bell for the Japanese boy. Claire
maintained a discreet silence. She had a feeling that it would be just
as well to let him take his full rein. The servant came in and cleared
away the empty bouillon-cups. Fish was served.

Flint took one taste of the fish and shoved it away impatiently. "You
know, a fellow like me gets awfully bored at all this sort of thing." He
swept the room with an inclusive gesture. "Not that my wife isn't the
best little woman in the world, but _you_ know. She's got standards and
convictions and all that sort of rot. I can't bundle _her_ off for
dinner and a little lark at the Red Paint or Bonini's or some other
Bohemian joint like them.... You know what I mean, no rough stuff ...
but a good feed, and two kinds of wine, and a cigarette with the small
black. Just gay and frivolous.... Of course I can get any number of
girls to run around and help eat up all the nourishment I care to
provide. But, good Lord! that isn't it! I'm looking for somebody with
human intelligence. Not that I want to discuss free verse and the Little
Theater movement. But I like to feel that if I took such a crazy notion
the person sitting opposite me