eathing was as soft and regular as when she was
reclining on the back seat of his taxi. It had somehow run in his head
that all these stage women were a poor lot physically--unsound, overfed
creatures, like canaries that are kept in a cage and stuffed with
song-restorer. He retreated to escape her thanks. "Good night! Pleasant
journey! Pleasant dreams!" With a friendly nod in Kitty's direction he
closed the door behind him.

He was somewhat surprised to find his own bag, his Pullman ticket in the
strap, on the seat just outside Kitty's door. But there was nothing
strange about it. He had got the last section left on the train, No. 13,
next the drawing-room. Every other berth in the car was made up. He was
just starting to look for the porter when the door of the state-room
opened and Kitty Ayrshire came out. She seated herself carelessly in the
front seat beside his bag.

"Please talk to me a little," she said coaxingly. "I'm always wakeful
after I sing, and I have to hunt some one to talk to. Celine and I get so
tired of each other. We can speak very low, and we shall not disturb any
one." She crossed her feet and rested her elbow on his Gladstone. Though
she still wore her gold slippers and stockings, she did not, he thanked
Heaven, have on her concert gown, but a very demure black velvet with
some sort of pearl trimming about the neck. "Wasn't it funny," she
proceeded, "that it happened to be you who picked me up? I wanted a
word with you, anyway."

McKann smiled in a way that meant he wasn't being taken in. "Did you? We
are not very old acquaintances."

"No, perhaps not. But you disapproved tonight, and I thought I was
singing very well. You are very critical in such matters?"

He had been standing, but now he sat down. "My dear young lady, I am not
critical at all. I know nothing about 'such matters.'"

"And care less?" she said for him, "Well, then we know where we are, in
so far as that is concerned. What did displease you? My gown, perhaps? It
may seem a little _outre_ here, but it's the sort of thing all the
imaginative designers abroad are doing. You like the English sort of
concert gown better?"

"About gowns," said McKann, "I know even less than about music. If I
looked uncomfortable, it was probably because I was uncomfortable. The
seats were bad and the lights were annoying."

Kitty looked up with solicitude. "I was sorry they sold those seats. I
don't like to make people uncomfortable in any way.