little. Lately I have speculated--successfully. I don't want to dwell
on this. I only wanted you to understand that if I chose I could cut a
very different figure--that my wife wouldn't have to live in a suburb."

"I really do not see," was the cold response, "how this concerns me in
the least."

"You, call yourself a Socialist, don't you, Miss Abbeway?" he demanded.
"You're not allowing the fact that you're an aristocrat and that I am a
self-made man to weigh with you?"

"The accident of birth counts for nothing," she replied, "you must know
that those are my principles--but it sometimes happens that birth and
environment give one tastes which it is impossible to ignore. Please do
not let us pursue this conversation any further, Mr. Fenn. We have had
a very pleasant dinner, for which I thank you--and here we are at Mr.
Orden's flat."

Her companion handed her out a little sulkily, and they ascended in
the lift to the fifth floor. The door was opened to them by Julian's
servant. He recognised Catherine and greeted her respectfully. Fenn
produced his authority, which the man accepted without comment.

"No news of your master yet?" Catherine asked him.

"None at all, madam," was the somewhat depressed admission. "I am
afraid that something must have happened to him. He was not the kind of
gentleman to go away like this and leave no word behind him."

"Still," she advised cheerfully, "I shouldn't despair. More wonderful
things have happened than that your master should return home to-morrow
or the next day with a perfectly simple explanation of his absence."

"I should be very glad to see him, madam," the man replied, as he backed
towards the door. "If I can be of any assistance, perhaps you will
ring."

The valet departed, closing the door behind him. Catherine looked around
the room into which they had been ushered, with a little frown. It
was essentially a man's sitting room, but it was well and tastefully
furnished, and she was astonished at the immense number of books,
pamphlets and Reviews which crowded the walls and every available space.
The Derby desk still stood open, there was a typewriter on a special
stand, and a pile of manuscript paper.

"What on earth," she murmured, "could Mr. Orden have wanted with a
typewriter! I thought journalism was generally done in the offices of a
newspaper--the sort of journalism that he used to undertake."

"Nice little crib, isn't it?" Fenn remarked, glancing around.