e
his way toward the writing-table, "and ask her to visit me upon some
other afternoon."

XXIX

Back again to his rooms, and, later on, once more to Louise's little
house in Kensington; a few minutes' masterful pleading, and then
success. Louise wrapped herself up and descended to the street by his
side.

For an hour or more John drove steadily westward, scarcely speaking more
than a chance word. It was twilight when he brought the car to a
standstill. Louise raised her veil and looked up.

"Well?" she asked inquiringly.

He pushed back the throttle on his steering-wheel and stopped the
engine. Then he turned toward her.

"I have something to say to you," he said. "I have brought you here that
I may say it in my own way and in my own atmosphere."

She responded instantly to his mood, although she did not yet grasp the
full significance of the situation. She leaned forward in the car, and
her eyes were lighted with interest. Into their faces a slight,
drizzling rain was carried at intervals by a gusty, north wind. The sky
was murky gray, except for one black mass of cloud that seemed bending
almost over their heads.

Down at their feet--they had made a circuit and were facing London
again--began the long lines of feeble lights which lit the great avenues
stretching onward to the city, the lights of suburban thoroughfares, of
local railways, and here and there a more brilliant illumination of some
picture palace or place of amusement. Farther away still, the vast glow
from the heart of the city was beginning to flare against the murky
sky--here red and threatening, as if from some great conflagration; in
other places yellow, with a sicklier light of fog-strangled brilliance.

"This is like you!" Louise murmured. "You had to bring me out to a
hilltop, on the dreariest hour of a wet March afternoon, to tell
me--what?"

"First of all," John began, "I will answer a question which you have
asked me three times since we started out this afternoon. You wanted to
know how I found out that you were not going to tea with the prince.
Well, here is the truth. I asked the prince to change the day of your
visit to him."

Her fine, silky eyebrows came a little closer together.

"You asked him that?" she repeated.

John nodded.

"And he consented?"

"I will explain," John continued. "It was a most unfortunate
circumstance, but in the club, after lunch, the subject of spending