g to interest her. His square jaw
and measured speech were indices of a character at least unusual. She
recognized certain invincible qualities under an exterior absolutely
commonplace.

"Are you as persistent about everything in life?" she asked him.

"Why not?" he replied. "I try always to be consistent."

"What is your name?"

"Leonard Tavernake," he answered, promptly.

"Are you well off--I mean moderately well off?"

"I have a quite sufficient income."

"Have you any one dependent upon you?"

"Not a soul," he declared. "I am my own master in every sense of the
word."

She laughed in an odd sort of way.

"Then you shall pay for your persistence," she said,--"I mean that I may
as well rob you of a sovereign as the restaurant people."

"You must tell me now where you would like to go to," he insisted. "It
is getting late."

"I do not like these foreign places," she replied. "I should prefer to
go to the grill-room of a good restaurant."

"We will take a taxicab," he announced. "You have no objection?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"If you have the money and don't mind spending it," she said, "I will
admit that I have had all the walking I want. Besides, the toe of my
boot is worn through and I find it painful. Yesterday I tramped ten
miles trying to find a man who was getting up a concert party for the
provinces."

"And did you find him?" he asked, hailing a cab.

"Yes, I found him," she answered, indifferently. "We went through the
usual programme. He heard me sing, tried to kiss me and promised to let
me know. Nobody ever refuses anything in my profession, you see. They
promise to let you know."

"Are you a singer, then, or an actress?"

"I am neither," she told him. "I said 'my profession' because it is the
only one to which I have ever tried to belong. I have never succeeded in
obtaining an engagement in this country. I do not suppose that even if I
had persevered I should ever have had one."

"You have given up the idea, then," he remarked.

"I have given it up," she admitted, a little curtly. "Please do not
think, because I am allowing you to be my companion for a short time,
that you may ask me questions. How fast these taxies go!"

They drew up at their destination--a well-known restaurant in Regent
Street. He paid the cabman and they descended a flight of stairs into
the grill-room.

"I hope that this place will suit you," he said. "I have not much
experience of restaurants."