"May I?"

"Yes. I like it."

"Do you smoke?"

"No--now and then when I'm troubled."

"Is that often?" he asked lightly.

"Very seldom," she replied, amused; "and the proof is that I never

smoked more than half a dozen cigarettes in all my life."

"Will you try one now?" he asked mischievously.

"I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"I don't know. I am."

"What troubles you, C. Bailey, Junior?" she asked, humorously.

"My disinclination to leave. And it's after eleven."

"If you never get into any more serious trouble than that," she said,

"I shall not worry about you."

"Would you worry if I were in trouble?"

"Naturally."

"Why?"

"Why? Because you are my friend. Why shouldn't I worry?"

"Do you really take our friendship as seriously as that?"

"Don't you?"

He changed countenance, hesitated, flicked the ashes from his

cigarette. Suddenly he looked her straight in the face: "Yes. I do take it seriously," he said in a voice so quietly and

perhaps unnecessarily emphatic that, for a few moments, she found

nothing to say in response.

Then, smilingly: "I am glad you look at it that way. It means that you

will come back some day."

"I will come to-morrow if you'll let me."

Which left her surprised and silent but not at all disquieted.

"Shall I, Athalie?"

"Yes--if you wish."

"Why not?" he said with more unnecessary emphasis and as though

addressing himself, and perhaps others not present. "I see no reason

why I shouldn't if you'll let me. Do you?"

"No."

"May I take you to dinner and to the theatre?"

A quick glow shot through her, leaving a sort of whispering confusion

in her brain which seemed full of distant voices.

"Yes, I'd like to go with you."

"That's fine! And we'll have supper afterward."

She smiled at him through the ringing confusion in her brain.

"Do you mind taking supper with me after the play?"

"No."

"Where then?"

"Anywhere--with you, C. Bailey, Junior."

Things began to seem to her a trifle unreal; she saw him a little

vaguely: vaguely, too, she was conscious that to whatever she said he

was responding with something more subtly vital than mere words.

Faintly within her the instinct stirred to ignore, to repress

something in him--in herself--she was not clear about just what she

ought to repress, or which of them harboured it.




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