ritically, her head a little on one side. "Because
you're two men--James Grierson, who is stodgy and respectable and ought
to marry what the other Griersons call a good girl, that is one with
money; and Jimmy, who is awfully sweet and unselfish, just the opposite
to James. Just now, you're Jimmy, the nice side of you is uppermost; but
some day it may be the other way about and then you'll run off and leave
poor Lalage."

He flushed, and tried to draw her to him. "Never, never," he declared.
"I shall always stick to you. Who else have I got?"

She shook her head. "You've got your own people, always, ready to have
you, when you'll be one of them; whilst I'm all alone, and only Lalage,
the girl you met by chance in Oxford Street."

Her words reawakened his curiosity as to her past. Twice before he had
tried to learn her story, but now, as on those occasions, she baffled
his questions.

"I am Lalage Penrose, that's all. I was a fool, and I've paid for my
folly, and there's nothing else worth telling."

"Still, I should like to hear," he persisted.

"Well, perhaps you shall some day, if you don't turn into James Grierson
before then. But--but, don't ask me, Jimmy." Her bantering manner
changed suddenly, and with a queer little sob she jumped up and hurried
into the other room.

Jimmy did not try to follow her. Instead, he lighted a cigarette, and
endeavoured to settle down to work on an article which had been
suggested by a paragraph in that morning's Record. A quarter of an hour
later Lalage came back with a little bundle of his socks in her hand.

"These want darning," she remarked; then, in the most natural manner,
she sat down in the big wicker chair beside him, and started to ply her
needle.

From time to time Jimmy glanced up from his writing. He was breaking
the moral code in which he had been brought up, the code which he knew,
as every sane man does know, is essentially right in principle; he was
risking a rupture with his own people who, certainly, would never
tolerate Lalage; he was face to face with an ugly financial situation,
almost penniless himself and with another dependent on him; and yet he
felt more at peace than he had done for many months past. Lalage, intent
on her needlework, frowning prettily over the large holes in his socks,
looked so sweet and girlish, so entirely unsoiled, outwardly at least,
by what she had been through, that it seemed as if, after all, there
could be nothing wrong. M