At several points during this harangue John had endeavoured to speak, and he was just about to do so now, when there occurred that which rendered speech impossible. From immediately behind them, as they stood facing the door, a voice spoke. "I want my bag, Hugo." It was Pat. She was standing within a yard of them. Her face was still that of a martyr, but now she seemed to suggest by her expression a martyr whose tormentors have suddenly thought up something new. "You've got my bag," she said. "Oh, ah," said Hugo. He handed over the beaded trifle, and she took it with a cold aloofness. There was a pause. "Well, good night," said Hugo. "Good night," said Pat. "Good night," said John. "Good night," said Pat. She turned away, and the lift bore her aloft. Its machinery badly needed a drop of oil, and it emitted, as it went, a low wailing sound that seemed to John like a commentary on the whole situation. VI Some half a mile from Curzon Street, on the fringe of the Soho district, there stands a smaller and humbler hotel named the Belvidere. In a bedroom on the second floor of this, at about the moment when Pat and Hugo had entered the lobby of the Lincoln, Dolly Molloy sat before a mirror, cold-creaming her attractive face. She was interrupted in this task by the arrival of the senatorial Thomas G. "Hello, sweetie-pie," said Miss Molloy. "There you are." "Yes," replied Mr. Molloy. "Here I am." Although his demeanour lacked the high tragedy which had made strong men quail in the presence of Pat Wyvern, this man was plainly ruffled. His fine features were overcast and his frank gray eyes looked sombre. "Gee! If there's one thing in this world I hate," he said, "it's having to talk to policemen." "What happened?" "Oh, I gave my name and address. _A_ name and address, that is to say. But I haven't got over yet the jar it gave me seeing so many cops all gathered together in a small room. And that's not all," went on Mr. Molloy, ventilating another grievance. "Why did you make me tell those folks you were my daughter?" "Well, sweetie, it sort of cramps my style, having people know we're married." "What do you mean, cramps your style?" "Oh, just cramps my style." "But, darn it," complained Mr. Molloy, going to the heart of the matter, "it makes me out so old, folks thinking I'm your father." The rather pronounced gap in years between himself and his young bride was a subject on which Soapy Molloy was always inclined to be sensitive. "I'm only forty-two." "And you don't seem that, not till you look at you close," said Dolly with womanly tact. "The whole thing is, sweetie, being so dignified, you can call yourself anybody's father and get away with it." Mr. Molloy, somewhat soothed, examined himself, not without approval, in the mirror. "I do look dignified," he admitted. "Like a professor or something." "That isn't a bald spot coming there, is it?"