t isn't _my_ house. It doesn't even belong to my people. I
live with an old lady, Mrs. Ellsworth. I hope she'll be in bed when I get
back, and the servants, too. I have a key because--because I told a fib
about the place where I was going, and consequently Mrs. Ellsworth
approved. If she hadn't approved, I shouldn't have been allowed out. I
could let you stand inside the door. But if any one followed us to the
house, and saw the number, he could look in the directory, and find out
that it belonged to Mrs. Ellsworth, not Mr. Smith."

"He couldn't have a directory in his pocket! By the time he got hold of
one and could make any use of his knowledge, I'd be far away."

"Yes, I suppose you would," Annesley thought aloud, and a little voice
seemed to add sharply in her ear: "Far away out of my life."

This brought to her memory what she had in her excitement forgotten:
the adventure she had come out to meet had faded into thin air! The
unexpected one which had so startlingly taken its place would end
to-night, and she would be left to the dreary existence from which she
had tried to break free.

She was like a pebble that had succeeded in riding out to sea on a wave,
only to be washed back into its old place on the shore. The thought that,
after all, she had no change to look forward to, gave the girl a
passionate desire to make the most of this one living hour among many
that were born dead.

"Mrs. Ellsworth's house," she said, "is 22-A, Torrington Square."

"Thank you." Only these two words he spoke, but the eager dark eyes
seemed to add praise and blessings for her confidence.

"My name is Annesley Grayle," she volunteered, as if to prove to the man
and to herself how far she trusted him; also perhaps as a bid for his
name in payment of that trust. So at least he must have understood, for
he said: "If I don't tell you mine, it's for your own protection. I'm not
ashamed of it; but it's better that you shouldn't know--that if you heard
it suddenly, it should be strange to you, just like any other name. Don't
you see I'm right?"

"I dare say you are."

"Then we'll leave it at that. But we can't go on pretending to study
this menu for ever! You came to dine with Mr. Smith. You'll dine with
his understudy instead. You'll let me order dinner? It's part of the
programme."

"Very well," Annesley agreed.

The man nodded to the head-waiter, who had been interested in the little
drama indirectly stage-managed by him. In