ree weeks, I think. I'll tell Mr. Smith to pay you
your month's wages. You don't know enough for the Majestic, Miss Malpas.
Or perhaps you know too much. I'm sorry. I had thought you would suit
us. Keep straight, that's all I have to say to you. Go back to
Doncaster, or wherever it is you came from. Leave before five o'clock.
That will do.'

With a godlike air, Mr. Reuben swung round his office-chair and faced
his desk. He tried not to perceive that there was a mysterious quality
about this case which he had not quite understood. Nina tripped
piteously out.

In the whole of London Nina had one acquaintance, and an hour or so
later, after drinking some tea, she set forth to visit this
acquaintance. The weight of her own foolishness, fatuity, silliness, and
ignorance was heavy upon her. And, moreover, she had been told that Mr.
Lionel Belmont had already departed back to America, his luggage being
marked for the American Transport Line.

She was primly walking, the superlative of the miserable, past the
facade of the hotel, when someone sprang out of a cab and spoke to her.
And it was Mr. Lionel Belmont.

'Get right into this hansom, Miss Malpas,' he said kindly, 'and I guess
we'll talk it out.'

'Talk what out?' she thought.

But she got in.

'Marble Arch, and go up Regent Street, and don't hurry,' said Mr.
Belmont to the cabman.

'How did he know my name?' she asked herself.

'A hansom's the most private place in London,' he said after a pause.

It certainly did seem to her very cosy and private, and her nearness to
one of the principal theatrical managers in America was almost
startling. Her white frock, with the black velvet decorations, touched
his gray suit.

'Now,' he said, 'I do wish you'd tell me why you were in my parlour last
night. Honest.'

'What for?' she parried, to gain time.

Should she begin to disclose her identity?

'Because--well, because--oh, look here, my girl, I want to be on very
peculiar terms with you. I want to straighten out everything. You'll be
sort of struck, but I'll be bound to tell you I'm your father. Now,
don't faint or anything.'

'Oh, I knew that!' she gasped. 'I saw the moles on your wrist when your
were registering--mother told me about them. Oh, if I had only known you
knew!'

They looked at one another.

'It was only the day before yesterday I found out I possessed such a
thing as a daughter. I had a kind of fancy to go around to the old spot.
This notion