"Don't speak to me," she said. "Don't come near me. I'm a leper, a pariah, and an outcast." "Oh, look here, hang it all, you can't, you know. That's mine. If there's any lepering to be done, I do that. Outcast? How do you mean outcast?" "Haven't you heard?" she said. "No," said Luke. "Come and sit on my knee, and tell me all your troubles." "I oughtn't," she said, but she did. "You didn't turn up at Victoria yesterday. Couldn't you leave your husband?" "I couldn't," she said. "I couldn't, because I've not got a husband. And have never had a husband. One of Bill's previous wives started to make a fuss, and he made a clean breast of it to me. He'd married in two different names before he married me, and both wives are still living. He went to Brighton on Saturday to marry one more. Because he wants to get his picture, as the peer convicted of trigamy, on the back page of the '_Daily Mail_,' with the fourth wife inset. So you see what has happened. It was my fault, but that's how I come to be in the pariah class. Can you bear me any longer?" "Yes," said Luke, "you're not heavy." And then the sad-eyed waiter came in without knocking, and they broke away. "I beg pardon," said the waiter. "Perhaps I interrupt a little. I come to say the chops is ready. Shall I put the two places close together?" "Very close together," said Luke. 6 They entered the dining-room. "You needn't remain," said Luke to the waiter. "We'll help ourselves." "Ver' good," said the waiter. "I understand. I am since three years of experience in the week-end business. I come when you ring--not before." Luke and Jona talked together earnestly for an hour. Then they remembered they had been intending to dine. Luke removed the cover from the dish and looked at two large melancholy chops, frozen hard. "Can we?" said Luke. "Not in this life," said Jona. "Get it removed." Luke produced a visiting-card, and wrote on the back of it: "A Present for a Good Dog. From Jona and Lukie!" He put the card in the dish and replaced the cover. Then he investigated the wine list, rang the bell, and ordered champagne and dry biscuits to be put in the drawing-room. (The reader is requested to look out. Once more the numbers of the section will be used as a part of the sections. The price of paper is still very high.) "Just imagine," said Luke. "Only this morning I was convinced that life was hell. Absolute hell." "And now?" asked Jona, shyly. "Now I know that it's 7," he said, and kissed her. Luke walked back. It was some time in the small hours that he entered his house burglariously by forcing open the window of a room that had once been called a den. As he sat at breakfast the next morning, Dot said: "Hope they gave you a good dinner at the 'Crown' last night." "I don't know," he said. "I don't really remember what we 8." "All love and honey, what?" suggested Dot. "Dot," said Luke, "don't be asi-- 9."