we you a debt. Count on me."

He spoke gravely and the gravity of it, the force that he exhaled,
comforted Cassy's bruised little heart and the comfort, the first that
she had had, made her lip twitch. None of that, though! Reacting she
rallied and smiled.

"Good-bye--and good luck!"

Jones saw her to the door, followed her out, followed her down to the
street, where for a moment he detained her.

"Just a word, if you don't mind. You have been abominably treated and
you seek no revenge. That is very fine. You have been abominably treated
and you bear no malice. That is superior. You have been abominably
treated and you accept it with a smile. That is alchemy. It is only a
noble nature that can extract the beautiful from the base. Where do you
live?"

At the change of key Cassy laughed but she told him. "Good-bye," she
added. "My love to your cat."

She passed on into the sunset. The bundle seemed heavy now, but her
heart was lighter. She had got it off, Lennox knew, presently a young
woman would be informed and though she could not be expected to dance at
the wedding, yet, after all----

The Park took her.

XXVI

When Cassy had gone, Jones went back to his rooms. He went absently, his
mind not on her story, which was old as the Palisades, but on a
situation, entirely new, which it had suggested.

"Nice girl," he remarked as he re-entered the workshop. "Suppose we go
and have dinner."

Sombrely Lennox looked up. At the table where he sat, he had been
fingering some papers. He threw them down.

"I am going to have a word with Paliser."

Jones cocked an eye at him. "See here, you are not a knight-errant. The
age of chivalry is over." The novelist paused and exclaimed: "What am I
saying! The age of chivalry is not over. It can't be. Last night,
Verelst dined with a monster!"

Lennox pushed at the papers. "If I were alone concerned, I would thank
Paliser. He has done me a good turn. He has set me straight."

Then, to the listening novelist, who later found the story very useful,
Lennox repeated Cassy's version of the rhyme and reason of the broken
engagement.

The tale of it concluded, Lennox flicked at a speck. "I am grateful to
Paliser for that, but for the manner in which he treated her, I shall
have a word with him. Just one."

Jones sat down. "A word, eh? Well, why not? Flipping a man in the face
with a glove was fashionable in the days of Charles II. Tweaking the
nose was Georgian. The h