tra-ordinarily delicate and pure from where the two friends were
sitting. There was something pathetic in its whiteness, and in the quiet
attitude of this woman who sat quite alone in the midst of the gay
crowd. Many people stared at her, whispered about her, were obviously
surprised at her solitude; but she seemed quite unconscious that she was
being noticed. And there was a curious simplicity in her
unconsciousness, and in her attitude, which made her seem almost girlish
from a little distance.

"There's Mrs. Chepstow," said a man at the next table to Armine's,
bending over to his companion, a stout and florid specimen from the
City. "And absolutely alone, by Jove!"

"Couldn't get even a kid from Sandhurst to-night, I s'pose," returned
the other. "I wonder she comes in at all if she can't scrape up an
escort. Wonder she has the cheek to do it."

They lowered their voices and leaned nearer to each other. Armine lifted
his glass of champagne to his lips, sipped it, and put it down.

"If you do see any patients, you can explain it's all my fault," he said
to the Doctor. "I will take the blame. But surely you don't have to
follow all your prescriptions?"

His voice was slightly uneven and abstracted, as if he were speaking
merely to cover some emotion he was determined to conceal.

"No. But I ought to set an example of reasonable living, I suppose."

They talked for a few minutes about health, with a curious formality,
like people who are conscious that they are being critically listened
to, or who are, too consciously, listening to themselves. Once or twice
Meyer Isaacson glanced across the room to Mrs. Chepstow. She was eating
her supper slowly, languidly, and always looking down. Apparently she
had not seen him or Armine. Indeed, she did not seem to see any one, but
she was rather sadly unconscious of her surroundings. The Doctor found
himself pitying her, then denying to himself that she merited
compassion. With many others, he wondered at her solitude. To sup thus
alone in a crowded restaurant was to advertise her ill success in the
life she had chosen, her abandonment by man. Why did she do this? He
could not then divine, although afterwards he knew. And he was quietly
astonished. Just at first he expected that she would presently be joined
by some one who was late. But no one came, and no second place was laid
at her table.

Conversation flagged between Armine and him, until the former presently
said:

"