ay, and came back carrying a beautiful old silver
loving cup. I knew it well. It came from Julian's forebears. Anne
had always loved it, and I was delighted that she should have it now.
She set it on a table before a mirror, and here it did a double
share to make the room possible.

When we were alone I expressed my opinion of her choice of lodgings.

"This sunless cavern!" I said. "This parlour-car furniture!"

She looked a little hurt. "You don't like it?" she said.

"Do you?" I snapped back.

After a time I had recourse to the old argument that it didn't look
well; that it wasn't fair to Julian. But she had been expecting this.

"My dear Walter," she answered, "you must try to be more consistent.
In Paris you told me that I must cease to regulate my life by Julian.
You were quite right. This place pleases me, and I don't intend to go
to a hotel, which I hate, or to take a house, which is a bother, in
order to soothe Julian's feelings. I have begun to lead my life to
suit myself."

The worst of it was, I could think of no answer.

A few evenings afterward we dined at the same house. Anne arrived
with a scarf on her head, under the escort of a maid. She had come
in a trolley car. Nobody's business but her own, perhaps, if she
would have allowed it to remain so, but when she got up to go, and
other people were talking of their motors' being late, Anne had to
say: "Mine is never late; it goes past the corner every minute."

I could almost hear a sigh, "Poor angel!" go round the room.

The next thing that happened was that Julian sent for me. He was in
what we used to call in the nursery "a state."

"What's this I hear about Anne's being hard up?" he said. "Living in
a nasty flat, and going out to dinner in the cars?" And he wouldn't
listen to an explanation. "She must take more; she must be made to
take more."

I had one of my most unfortunate inspirations. I thought I saw an
opportunity for Julian to make an impression.

"I don't think she would listen to me," I said. "Why don't you get
Mr. Granger to speak to her?"

The idea appealed to Julian. He admired Mr. Granger, and remembered
that he and Anne had been friends. Whereas I thought, of course, that
Mr. Granger would thus be made to see that the fault, if there were
a fault, was not of Julian's generosity. Stupidly enough I failed to
see that if Julian's offer was graceful Anne's gesture of refusal
would be upon a splendid scale.

And it must have