go cautiously and carefully. He
would not let Miss Meredyth witness his sense of satisfaction.

"I am glad you have returned, Miss Meredyth. I felt sure that you would;
there's no reason whatever we shouldn't get on perfectly well."

The girl gave him a stiff little inclination of her head. She had done
much personal violence to her sense of pride, yet she had come back
because the alternative--worklessness, possible starvation and
homelessness--had not appealed to her. And, after all, knowing Mr.
Slotman to be what he was, she was forewarned and forearmed.

So Joan came back and took up her old work, and Mr. Slotman practised
temporarily a courtesy and a forbearance that were foreign to him. But
Mr. Slotman had by no means given up his hopes and desires. Joan
appealed to him as no woman ever had. He admired her statuesque beauty.
He admired her air of breeding; he admired the very pride that she had
attempted to crush him with.

A woman like that could go anywhere, Slotman thought, and pictured it to
himself, he following in her trail, and finding an entry into a society
that would have otherwise resolutely shut him out. For like most men of
his type, self made, egregious, and generally offensive, he had an
inborn desire to get into Society and mingle with his betters.

On the Monday morning there had been delivered to Hugh Alston by hand a
little note from Marjorie; it was on pink paper, and was scented
delicately. If he had not been so very much in love with Marjorie, the
pink notepaper might have annoyed him, but it did not. The faint
fragrance reminded him of her.

She wrote a neat and exquisite hand; everything that she did was neat
and exquisite, and remembering his hopes of not so long ago, he groaned
a little dismally to himself as he reverently cut the envelope.

"MY DEAR HUGH,

"I have managed to get the address from aunt. It is 'Miss Joan
Meredyth, care Mrs. Wenham, No. 7, Bemrose Square, London, W.C.' I
have been thinking so much about what you said, and hoping that
your plan may succeed. I am sure that you would be very, very
happy together...."

(Hugh laughed unmusically.)

"Tom has been here all the afternoon and evening, and aunt has
been perfectly charming to him. Hugh, I know that everything is
going to be right now, and I owe it all to you. You don't know how
grateful I am, dear. I shall never, never forget your goodness and
sweetness to me, de