and there was a definite appeal in her
eyes.

"Are you in love with me?"

The question seemed slightly to take him off balance.

"Damn! I think you're fine," he said.

"That is--splendid," she replied and turned her head.

"Feeling good about it?"

"Who wouldn't be?"

"Thought you took it quiet."

"I'm sorry."

"Maybe you had some hopes along this street?"

"I guessed there was something doing," she answered in an echo of his
tone.

"It's all fixed then."

"I suppose so."

"Say I don't want you to think I'm only doing this out of expediency."

"You're not?"

"Not altogether."

"Better and better," said Auriole.

"I must scrape half an hour for lunch one of these days and we'll talk
over settlements."

"That will be--jolly."

"I'll get right upstairs now."

"Goodbye."

He made no effort to take her hand or to kiss her and she offered no
encouragement. At the room door he turned.

"Paris for the honeymoon?" he asked.

"Wherever you like."

He looked at her critically and she met his eyes without flinching.

"And you feel kind of strong--soft spots eradicated?"

"Naturally."

"I'm a hell of a tonic," said Ezra P. Hipps and closed the door behind
him.

Auriole stood where he had left her. Presently she raised her hands
and they were clenched so tightly that the knuckles were white as ivory.

"How utterly, utterly awful," she said to herself. "How unspeakable."

She picked up her bag and the other odds and ends a woman will carry
and passed out of the house with flaming cheeks.

The chauffeur of the little two seater car that stood by the gates
asked where he should drive.

"I don't care," she replied. "Anywhere you like. Get on a hill--some
place where I can breathe."

The little Wolseley Ten wound through the green lanes and presently
mounted a pine fringed slope. Away to the west hung the smoke of
London with the pleasant countryside in between.

Auriole touched the chauffeur on the arm and he stopped. Alighting
from the car she scrambled over uneven ground and presently threw
herself down under the shade of a tree. Somewhere overhead a lark was
singing and the air vibrated to the drone of summer insects. The day
was blue, peaceful, sweet. A thin breeze rustled the foliage, and
golden sun spots dappled the brown carpet of pine needles upon which
she lay. A single cloud travelled in the sky and its shadow fell
across the house and grounds in which Richard French