"The next stop is the City Hall. Then, if you like, we'll run over to Paris." "John," she asked him intently, "who was the Prince of Wales?" He waited till they were in the elevator, dropping twenty floors at a swoop. Then he leaned forward and tapped the lift-boy on the shoulder. "Not so fast, Cedric. This lady isn't used to falls from high places." The elevator-boy turned around, smiled. His face was pale, oval, framed in yellow hair. Rags blushed like fire. "Cedric's from Wessex," explained John. "The resemblance is, to say the least, amazing. Princes are not particularly discreet, and I suspect Cedric of being a Guelph in some left-handed way." Rags took the monocle from around her neck and threw the ribbon over Cedric's head. "Thank you," she said simply, "for the second greatest thrill of my life." John Chestnut began rubbing his hands together in a commercial gesture. "Patronize this place, lady," he besought her. "Best bazaar in the city!" "What have you got for sale?" "Well, m'selle, to-day we have some perfectly bee-_oo_-tiful love." "Wrap it up, Mr. Merchant," cried Rags Martin-Jones. "It looks like a bargain to me." THE ADJUSTER At five o'clock the sombre egg-shaped room at the Ritz ripens to a subtle melody--the light _clat-clat_ of one lump, two lumps, into the cup, and the _ding_ of the shining teapots and cream-pots as they kiss elegantly in transit upon a silver tray. There are those who cherish that amber hour above all other hours, for now the pale, pleasant toil of the lilies who inhabit the Ritz is over--the singing decorative part of the day remains. Moving your eyes around the slightly raised horseshoe balcony you might, one spring afternoon, have seen young Mrs. Alphonse Karr and young Mrs. Charles Hemple at a table for two. The one in the dress was Mrs. Hemple--when I say "the dress" I refer to that black immaculate affair with the big buttons and the red ghost of a cape at the shoulders, a gown suggesting with faint and fashionable irreverence the garb of a French cardinal, as it was meant to do when it was invented in the Rue de la Paix. Mrs. Karr and Mrs. Hemple were twenty-three years old, and their enemies said that they had done very well for themselves. Either might have had her limousine waiting at the hotel door, but both of them much preferred to walk home (up Park Avenue) through the April twilight. Luella Hemple was tall, with the sort of flaxen hair that English country girls should have, but seldom do. Her skin was radiant, and there was no need of putting anything on it at all, but in deference to an antiquated fashion--this was the year 1920--she had powdered out its high roses and drawn on it a new mouth and new eyebrows--which were no more successful than such meddling deserves. This, of course, is said from the vantage-point of 1925. In those days the effect she gave was exactly right.