ent
with Margot. Perhaps, after all, she had not given the interview to the
newspaper reporter. It might be what she herself would call a "fake."
But as for her coming to stop at a big, fashionable hotel like the
Carlton, in the circumstances she could hardly have done anything in
worse taste.

He hated to think that she was capable of taking so false a step. He
hated to think that it was exactly like her to take it. He hated to be
obliged to call on her in the hotel; and he hated himself for hating it.

Knight was of the world that is inclined to regard servants as automata;
but he was absurdly self-conscious as he saw his card on a silver tray,
in the hand of an expressionless, liveried youth who probably had the
famous interview in his pocket. If not there, it was only because the
paper would not fit in. The footman had certainly read the interview,
and followed the "Northmorland Case" with passionate interest, for
months, from the time it began with melodrama, and turned violently to
tragedy, up to the present moment when (as the journalists neatly
crammed the news into a nutshell) "it bade fair to end with
marriage-bells."

Many servants and small tradespeople in London had taken shares, Stephen
had heard, as a speculative investment, in the scheme originated to
provide capital for the "other side," which was to return a hundred per
cent. in case of success. Probably the expressionless youth was
inwardly reviling the Northmorland family because he had lost his money
and would be obliged to carry silver trays all the rest of his life,
instead of starting a green grocery business. Stephen hoped that his own
face was as expressionless, as he waited to receive the unwelcome
message that Miss Lorenzi was at home.

It came very quickly, and in a worse form than Stephen had expected.
Miss Lorenzi was in the Palm Court, and would Mr. Knight please come to
her there?

Of course he had to obey; but it was harder than ever to remain
expressionless.

There were a good many people in the Palm Court, and they all looked at
Stephen Knight as he threaded his intricate way among chairs and little
tables and palms, toward a corner where a young woman in black crape sat
on a pink sofa. Her hat was very large, and a palm with enormous
fan-leaves drooped above it like a sympathetic weeping willow on a
mourning brooch. But under the hat was a splendidly beautiful dark face.

"Looks as if he were on his way to be shot," a man wh