Guest's lips curled in eloquent disbelief. He paced slowly up and down the room, then stationed himself once more in front of the sofa. "Did you look over your things to see that they were all right?" "No! ... She said she hadn't touched them." "Did you make her return the notes?" "No, I--I guessed she'd need them herself!" "How extremely considerate! Didn't you feel it necessary to offer her a little more, while you were about it? To give her another twenty pounds, say, to make up the full change for the cheque?" The face that peered up at him was at once so abashed, so discomfited, so childlike in its humility, that his anger melted before it, and gave place to a wave of tenderness. "You ridiculous, high-flown, little girl! Who would have believed that all your shrewd commonsense would collapse like this! No! I'm not angry, I shan't scold any more. The thing's done now, and you've had enough worry. I'm going to ring the bell, and order some luncheon. We will have it here together, and comfort ourselves after all this excitement. I'm hungry enough, whatever you are! What shall it be? You are going to treat me, you know, so it must be something good. Roast chicken! That's what ladies generally prefer, and some sweets, and fruit. Claret for me, and what for you? Is it to be--`corfee'-- once more?" He went to the door to give the order to the waiter, accompanied by a tip which had the effect of producing the meal in an extraordinarily short space of time. Cornelia's appearance being still distinctly dishevelled, Guest dismissed the waiter and himself took the head of the table, carving the chicken, handing the vegetable dishes, and even pouring out the coffee. If they had been a honeymoon couple the intimacy of the scene could not have been greater, but in that case he would have taken his wife in his arms and kissed away her tears. Poor, little, red-eyed girl! There was precious little beauty about her at the moment, yet she had never appeared more attractive. "I ken't eat a bite!" was Cornelia's first melancholy statement, but when one wing of the chicken had disappeared from her plate--"It's mighty good!" she said, and promptly set to work on a second. She drank copious draughts of coffee, began to revive in spirits, and experience qualms concerning her appearance. "Say! do I look a perfect freak?" "You look much better than you did ten minutes since. In another ten minutes you will look quite like yourself, if you obey my orders, and eat a good meal." Cornelia shrugged expressively. "I know what that means! I guess I'm ugly enough to kill. That's why I hate to cry--it musses one up so for hours after. ... Captain Guest, what am I going to do next? Can I settle up, and get away to Norton this afternoon, do you suppose?"