"With my secretary--the fuzzyhaired young person who was just getting rid of Mr. Miller for me when you arrived. We are a terribly advanced couple, in our ideas, but we lead a thoroughly reputable life. I sometimes think," she went on, with a sigh, "that all one's tendencies towards the unusual can be got rid of in opinions. Susan, for instance--that is my secretary's name--pronounces herself unblushingly in favour of free love, but I don't think she has ever allowed a man to kiss her in her life." "Your own opinions?" he asked curiously. "I suppose they, too, are a little revolutionary, so far as regards our social laws?" "I dare not even define them," she acknowledged, "they are so entirely negative. Somehow or other, I can't help thinking that the present system will die out through the sheer absurdity of it. We really shan't need a crusade against the marriage laws. The whole system is committing suicide as fast as it can." "How old are you?" he asked. "Twenty-four," she answered promptly. "And supposing you fell in love--taking it for granted that you have not done so already--should you marry?" Her eyes rested upon his, a little narrowed, curiously and pleasantly reflective. All the time the corners of her sensitive mouth twitched a little. "To tell you the truth," she confided, with a somewhat evasive air, "I have been so busy thinking out life for other people that I have never stopped to apply its general principles to myself." "You are a sophist," he declared. "I have not your remarkable insight," she laughed mockingly. CHAPTER XIII "How this came about I don't even quite know," Tallente remarked, an hour or so later, as he laid down the menu and smiled across the corner table in the little Soho restaurant at his two companions. "I can tell you exactly," Nora declared. "You are in town for a few days only, and I want to see as much of you as I can; Susan here is deserting me at nine o'clock to go to a musical comedy; I particularly wanted a sole Georges, and I knew, if Susan and I came here alone, a person whom we neither of us like would come and share our table. Therefore, I made artless enquiries as to your engagements for the evening. When I found that you proposed to dine alone in some hidden place rather than run the risk of meeting any of your political acquaintances at the club, I went in for a little mental suggestion." "I see," he murmured. "Then my invitation wasn't a spontaneous one?" "Not at all," she agreed. "I put the idea into your head." "And now that we are here, are you going to stretch me on the rack and delve for my opinions on all sorts of subjects? is Miss Susan there going to take them down in shorthand on her cuff and you make a report to Dartrey when he comes back to-morrow?" She laughed at him from underneath her close-fitting, becoming little hat. She was biting an olive with firm white teeth.