s."

He produced a little roll of notes and handed them to her. She took
them with shaking fingers. She was beginning to lose some of her
courage. The sight of the money impressed her.

"Alfred Burton," she said, "why don't you drop all this foolishness?
Come home with us this afternoon."

She leaned across the table, on which she had once more plumped her
elbows. She looked at him in a way he had once found fascinating--her
chin thrown forward, her cheeks supported by her knuckles. Little
specks of her boa fell into her untouched teacup.

"Come home with Alfred and me," she begged, with half-ashamed
earnestness. "It's band night and we might ask the Johnsons in to
supper. I've got a nice steak in the house, been hanging, and Mrs.
Cross could come in and cook it while we are out. Mr. Johnson would
sing to us afterwards, and there's your banjo. You do play it so well,
Alfred. You used to like band nights--to look forward to them all the
week. Come, now!"

The man's whole being was in a state of revolt. It was an amazing thing
indeed, this which had come to him. No wonder Ellen was puzzled! She
had right on her side, and more than right. It was perfectly true that
he had been accustomed to look forward to band nights. It was true that
he used to like to have a neighbor in to supper afterwards, and play the
fool with the banjo and crack silly jokes; talk shop with Johnson, who
was an auctioneer's clerk himself; smoke atrocious cigars and make worse
puns. And now! He looked at her almost pitifully.

"I--I can't manage it just yet," he said, hurriedly. "I'll write--or
see you again soon. Ellen, I'm sorry," he wound up, "but just at
present I can't change anything."

So Burton paid the bill and the tea-party was over. He saw them off as
far as the lift in Leicester Square Station, but Ellen never looked at
him again. He had a shrewd suspicion that underneath her veil she was
weeping. She refused to say good-bye and kept tight hold of Alfred's
hand. When they had gone, he passed out of the station and stood upon
the pavement of Piccadilly Circus. Side by side with a sense of
immeasurable relief, an odd kind of pain was gripping his heart.
Something that had belonged to him had been wrenched away. A wave of
meretricious sentiment, false yet with a curious base of naturalness,
swept in upon him for a moment and tugged at his heart-strings. She had
been his woman; the little boy with the sticky mouth was child of his.
Th