e assured her, "because we are going
to have a cocktail together within the next three minutes. Look at
you--pale as you can stick. I bet you haven't had a mouthful of food all
day. Neither have I, except a slice of bread and butter with my tea this
morning. We're a nice sort of couple to talk about clothes. What we want
is food."

She swayed for a moment and pretended that she tripped. He caught her arm
and steadied her. She jerked it from him.

"Have your own way," she yielded.

They reached the corner of the street, plunged into the surging crowds of
Broadway, passed into the huge restaurant, were once more pounced upon
by a businesslike but slightly patronizing maitre d'hotel, and escorted
to a remote table in a sort of annex of the room. Philip pushed the menu
away.

"Two cocktails--the quickest you ever mixed in your life," he ordered.
"Quicker than that, mind."

The man was back again almost at once with two frosted glasses upon a
tray. They laughed together almost like children as they set them down
empty.

"I know what I want, and you, too, by the look of you," he continued--"a
beefsteak, with some more of that green corn you gave me the other day,
and fried potatoes, and Burgundy. We'll have some oysters first while we
wait."

She sighed.

"I don't mean to come here with you again," she said, a little
impatiently. "I don't know why I give in to you. You're not strong, you
know. You are a weak man. Women will always look after you; they'll
always help you in trouble--I suppose they'll always care for you. Can't
think why I do what you want me to. Guess I was near starving."

He laughed.

"You don't know much about me yet," he reminded her.

"You don't know much about yourself," she retorted glibly. "Why,
according to your own confession, you only started life a few weeks ago.
I fancy what went before didn't count for much. You've been fretted and
tied up somewhere. You haven't had the chance of getting big like so many
of our American men. What are you going to do with this play of yours?"

"Miss Elizabeth Dalstan has promised to produce it," he told her.

She looked at him in some surprise.

"Elizabeth Dalstan?" she repeated. "Why, she's one of our best
actresses."

"I understood so," he replied. "She has heard the story--in fact I wrote
out one of the scenes with her. She is going to produce it as soon as
it's finished."

"Well, all you poor idiots who write things have some fine tale to