r waiting
for her, but she paused a moment, pulled in a long breath and grinned at
herself. In the state of mind she was in just then, divided between her
impatience to get back to her own room where her thoughts could be free
to run upon the one theme they welcomed, and her wrath and disgust over
the scene Olga had just subjected her to, the poor man was in danger of
having a pretty unsatisfactory sort of hour with her. She must brace up
and really try to be nice to him.

So through all the preliminaries to the real talk which he'd said he
wanted with her, she was consciously as cordial and friendly as she knew
how to be. She said she hoped she hadn't kept him waiting too long, and
when he apologized for taking her out through the stage door and the
alley, with the explanation that the front of the house was by this time
locked, she made a good-humored reference to the fact that the alley and
the stage door were now her natural walk in life, and that it was just
as well she shouldn't be spoiled with liberties.

He asked her if she had any preference as to where they went for supper,
and the way she acknowledged, again with a smile, that she'd rather not
go to Rector's, nor to any of the places over on Michigan Avenue, was an
admission, in candid confidence, of the existence of another half of her
life which she wished to keep, if possible, unentangled with this. She
showed herself frankly pleased with the taxi he provided, sank back
into her place in it with a sigh of clear satisfaction, and was, as far
as he could see, completely incurious about the address he gave the
chauffeur. The place he picked out was an excellent little chop-house in
one of the courts south of Van Buren Street, a place little frequented
at night--manned, indeed, after dinner, merely by the proprietor, one
waiter and a man cook in the grille, and kept open to avoid the chance
of disappointing any of the few epicurean clients who wouldn't eat
anywhere else.

But neither the neighborhood nor the loneliness of the place got even so
much as a questioning glance from Rose. She left the ordering of the
supper to him, and assented with a nod to his including with it a bottle
of sparkling Burgundy.

There is nothing quite so disconcerting as to be prepared to overcome a
resistance and then to find no resistance there; to be ready with
convincing arguments, and then not have them called for. This, very
naturally, was the plight of John Galbraith.