th his wife--he thought of it
thus--though it was making him smart badly. As he went forward,
threading his way among the hurrying after-lunch throngs, he was
thinking hard. He attracted some attention from women's eyes as he
swung along, oblivious, big, straight-shouldered and masculine. All
the afternoon, while his mind was ostensibly upon his business, he
fumed and fretted.

In taking up his job in London, he found a good deal to do and to book
that first day. He had to pay rushing visits to two agents, talk over
his tour with the head of the firm, and drive about the Park, in a
Runaway, a rich undecided peer who couldn't make up his mind to buy
her. But he bought the car _de luxe_ before they parted, and his
cheque lay in Osborn's pocket.

Another twenty-pounds commission, and what for? To spend on a woman
who coolly didn't want it. Osborn Kerr started for home, chafing
sorely.

On his way to the Piccadilly Tube he passed the Piccadilly Theatre.
Outside the doors hung a big frame of photographs of the entire cast
of Sautree's new production, and he paused to look, absent-minded as
he was, with male interest in that galaxy of charm. In the second row
of faces he met Roselle's. She photographed well, her big, smooth
shoulders bare, her hair smooth and smart, her chin uptilted so that
she looked out, foreshortened. She smiled inscrutably. He knew the
smile well, although he had never translated it so far as to guess
that it covered stupidity in a sphinx's mask that baffled and piqued.
That smile was of sterling value to Roselle; it was like so many
pounds paid regularly into her pocket; it set men wondering what her
meaning was when all the while she meant nothing. As Osborn Kerr
paused before the rows of portraits, he wondered, a little yet, what
Roselle meant when, so inscrutably, she smiled.

She was beautiful, there was no doubt of it. He remembered with some
self-gratulation those hours spent with her in the blue Runaway with
its silver fittings; Roselle in her fur coat and the purple velvet hat
crushed close, in a cheeky fashion, over her night-black hair; and
people turning to look at them both. He had seen in men's faces as
they passed that they thought him a lucky fellow. They would have
liked to be in his shoes, or rather, in his seat beside her, in the
Runaway.

He passed on, the trouble in his heart a shade lighter for the
intrusion of something else, something pleasant. It was like diluting
a nasty