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"Hello," she said serenely, sauntering in, her long, pale hands bracketed on her narrow hips, her lips disclosing her teeth in a smile so like that nervous muscular recession which passed for a snised it and thought she washis eye calmly, and lifted her slim neck, lips passive under his i his hands on the bare shoulders of the tall, pallid girl--tall as he, and as pallid

"No, Mrs Ven is in, Howard"

"Now? Youin to interrupt--"

"Oh no; she isn't fond of you, Howard"

"You said--" he began alers across his lips

"I said a very foolish thing, Howard I said that I'd "

"You e it?"

"Not at all; I could easily have ed it But--I didn't care to"

She looked at hie as he held her eers patted her hair into place where his ar him all the while out of her pale, haunted eyes

"You promised me," he said, "that you--"

"Oh Howard! Do men still believe in proh now; his voice, too, had lost its passionless, monotonous precision Whatever was in the man of emotion was astir; his impatient voice, his lack of poise, the almost human lack of caution in his speech betrayed hiatha, how long is this going to last? Are you trying to ?"

"Wrong? Oh dear no! How could there be anything wrong between you and atha, what is thenow and settle it one way or the other! I won't stand it; I--I can't!"

"Very well," she said, releasing herself frolance at the er-tips on her burnished hair "Very well," she repeated, gazing again into the mirror; "what am I to understand, Howard?"

"You knohat to understand," he said in a low voice; "you knoe both understood when--when--"

"When what?"

"When I--when you--"

"Oh what, Howard?" she prompted indolently; and he answered in brutal exasperation, and for the first tie, pale beauty and between her lips the breath ca at the dull, silvery rug under her feet