hadows, there was a
tentative significance. It appealed to the lowest nature of his
senses to see her, whom he had long desired, unbending in her
reticence. Her laughter was a whip about his body; her lips,
parted--losing that expression of restraint--were becoming an
obsession to his eyes. But he guarded all his actions with a steady
hand.

When her glass was empty for the second time, he stretched out his
hand to refill it again.

"Oh--I'd better not have any more," she said lightly. "Whatever would
you do with me if I took too much?" And she laughed. Laughed, he
imagined, at the possibilities that rose to her mind, and it was on
the edge of his lips to say the things he would do.

"Another glass can't hurt you," he said, laughing with her.
"Here--I'll fill mine--there"--he held up the bottle for her to
see--"Now you have the remainder. You don't want me to drink it all,
do you? I should like to know what you'd do--I suppose you'd give
me in charge of the head waiter? I guess you'd shirk your
responsibilities more than I would." And as he talked, he emptied
the bottle into her glass beneath the fringe of the conversation.

"Ever hear that story," he began again, and caught her attention once
more with an idle tale that had worn its way through half the clubs
in Town. His yarns were all fresh to her, and, moreover, he spun them
amazingly well. There was none of that disconcerting fear of their
staleness to thwart him--no need for the tentative preface--"You'll
say if you've heard this before." One suggested another--they rolled
off his tongue. And while she sipped her champagne, he kept her
amused; never allowed her the moments of inaction in which to relent.
He amused himself. The old, worn-out story has all the humour still
keen in it for you--if _you_ tell it. It was no effort, no strain
to Devenish. He laughed as heartily as she did over the stale old
jests. Their novelty to her made them new to him. She leant her elbows
on the table and watched his face as he told them.

"Now," he said, when they had finished their coffee, "how about the
songs? I've done my share of the entertainment. As soon as I've got
the bill, we'll go back, and you can supply the more serious items
of the programme."

"Really--I'm afraid I couldn't. I believe you think I sing well--I
don't. I did think of going on the stage once--into musical
comedy--but not because I was musical."

"Well--of course not. It isn't a refuge for the ar