inner, he asks me to go and eat it for him and tell him what it's all
about. That doesn't suggest the frank and honest journalist, does it?"

"It is unusual, it certainly is unusual," Peter was bound to admit.

"I distrust the man," said Clodd. "He's not our class. What is he doing
here?"

"I will ask him, Clodd; I will ask him straight out."

"And believe whatever he tells you."

"No, I shan't."

"Then what's the good of asking him?"

"Well, what am I to do?" demanded the bewildered Peter.

"Get rid of him," suggested Clodd.

"Get rid of him?"

"Get him away! Don't have him in and out of the office all day
long-looking at her with those collie-dog eyes of his, arguing art and
poetry with her in that cushat-dove voice of his. Get him clean away--if
it isn't too late already."

"Nonsense," said Peter, who had turned white, however. "She's not that
sort of girl."

"Not that sort of girl!" Clodd had no patience with Peter Hope, and told
him so. "Why are there never inkstains on her fingers now? There used
to be. Why does she always keep a lemon in her drawer? When did she
last have her hair cut? I'll tell you if you care to know--the week
before he came, five months ago. She used to have it cut once a
fortnight: said it tickled her neck. Why does she jump on people when
they call her Tommy and tell them that her name is Jane? It never used
to be Jane. Maybe when you're a bit older you'll begin to notice things
for yourself."

Clodd jammed his hat on his head and flung himself down the stairs.

Peter, slipping out a minute later, bought himself an ounce of snuff.

"Fiddle-de-dee!" said Peter as he helped himself to his thirteenth pinch.
"Don't believe it. I'll sound her. I shan't say a word--I'll just sound
her."

Peter stood with his back to the fire. Tommy sat at her desk, correcting
proofs of a fanciful story: _The Man Without a Past_.

"I shall miss him," said Peter; "I know I shall."

"Miss whom?" demanded Tommy.

"Danvers," sighed Peter. "It always happens so. You get friendly with a
man; then he goes away--abroad, back to America, Lord knows where. You
never see him again."

Tommy looked up. There was trouble in her face.

"How do you spell 'harassed'?" questioned Tommy! "two r's or one."

"One r," Peter informed her, "two s's."

"I thought so." The trouble passed from Tommy's face.

"You don't ask when he's going, you don't ask where he's going,"
complained Pete