erful to you when you walk along here without a dollar
to bless yourself with, and your silly plays come tumbling back. Now this
is the Martin House. My! Looks good inside, don't it?"

They crossed the threshold, Philip handed his hat to the attendant and
they stood, a little undecided, at the top of the brilliantly-lit room. A
condescending maitre d'hotel showed them to a retired table in a distant
corner, and another waiter handed them a menu.

"You know, half of this is unintelligible to me," Philip confessed.
"You'll have to do the ordering--that was our bargain, you know."

"You must tell me how much you want to spend, then?" she insisted.

"I will not," he answered firmly. "What I want is a good dinner, and for
this once in my life I don't care what it costs. I've a few hundred
dollars in my pocket, so you needn't be afraid I shan't be able to pay
the bill. You just order the things you like, and a bottle of claret or
anything else you prefer."

She turned to the waiter, and, carefully studying the prices, she gave
him an order.

"One portion for two, remember, of the fish and the salad," she enjoined.
"Two portions of the chicken, if you think one won't be enough."

She leaned back in her place.

"It's going to cost you, when you've paid for the claret, a matter of
four dollars and fifty cents, this dinner," she said, "and I guess you'll
have to give the waiter a quarter. Are you scared?"

He laughed at her once more.

"Not a bit!"

She looked at his long, delicate fingers--studied him for a moment.
Notwithstanding his clothes, there was an air of breeding about him,
unconcealable, a thing apart, even, from his good looks.

"Clerk, were you?" she remarked. "Seems to me you're used to spending two
dollars on a meal all right. I'm not!"

"Neither am I," he assured her. "One doesn't have much opportunity of
spending money in--Jamaica."

"You seem kind of used to it, somehow," she persisted. "Have you come
into money, then?"

"I've saved a little," he explained, with a rather grim smile, "and
I've--well, shall we say come into some?"

"Stolen it, maybe," she observed indifferently.

"Should you be horrified if I told that I had?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I'm one of those who's lived honest, and I
sometimes wonder whether it pays."

"It's a great problem," he sighed.

"It is that," she admitted gloomily. "I've got a friend--she used to live
in our place, just below me--Stella Kimbell, h