Presently the glass doors swung and a girl came hurriedly toward him, holding out her gloved hand. “I am awfully sorry I am late, Reggie,” she said with easy familiarity. “If you were an hour late or five hours late or a day late,” said the young man with gentle ecstasy, “I should be content to wait, Miss Flemming.” She flashed a dazzling smile at him. “I shouldn’t be horribly shocked if you called me Vera,” she said. The young man went pinker than ever, coughed, stuttered, ran his gloved finger inside the high upstanding collar about his thin throat, dropped his eye-glass, retrieved it and did all this in the space of four seconds, thereby betraying his perturbation and his gratitude. “You have a table, I suppose?” said the girl when she had returned from depositing her coat. “Rather!” said the young man, and added after a second’s thought, “Rather!” He fussily shepherded her through the mass of tables where his own attenuation enabled him to emulate the deeds of the agile serving man and brought her to a corner table which was smothered with rare flowers. Heads were turned, sharp eyes focussed the couple, some smiled, though for the girl the glances held nothing but admiration or cold-blooded appraisement, according to the sex of the observer. “Reggie Boltover!” said one young man. “Who is Reggie Boltover?” asked his companion. “A human being loosely attached to a million,” was the laconic description. The girl was radiant, the smile hardly left her face and the eyes which glanced shyly up to her tall companion were full of wonder and delight. “So this is Sebo’s,” she said. “Isn’t it a dreadfully wicked place?” Reggie Boltover’s face creased alarmingly--he, too, was smiling. “My dear Miss--my dear Vera,” he said boldly, “should I bring you to a wicked place, now I ask you; should I bring you to a wicked place, should I?” His conversational powers were not brilliant but his heart was pure. He was not really a wicked young man about town and his chief wickedness lay in his implicit belief that he was. He had met the girl one night by accident. A more daring friend of his, and nearer approaching Reggie’s own ideal of doggishness, had induced him (he protesting feebly) to call at a stage-door where he was meeting a charming friend to take her to supper. The charming friend in the generous large-hearted way of chorus girls had introduced _her_ friend, Vera Flemming, a new-comer to the ranks of the chorus, and they had all supped together and Vera had been very charming to Mr. Reggie Boltover and he had asked her to go with him up the river and had serious thoughts, because of her evident refinement, of introducing her to his mother, which shows that Reggie had reached the most dangerous stage of infatuation. There was really nothing wrong about Reggie Boltover and nothing remarkably terrible about this strangely initiated friendship.