Claude Bates went. Indeed, the verb but feebly expresses the celerity of his movement. One moment he was lolling on the lounge; the next he had ceased to be and the lobby was absolutely free from him. Kay, looking over her shoulder into the grill-room, observed him drop into a chair and mop his forehead with a handkerchief. She returned to her thoughts. The advent of Claude had given them a new turn; or, rather, it had brought prominently before her mind what until then had only lurked at the back of it--the matter of Willoughby Braddock’s financial status. Willoughby Braddock was a very rich man; the girl who became Mrs. Willoughby Braddock would be a very rich woman. She would, that is to say, step automatically into a position in life where the prowling Claude Bateses of the world would cease to be an annoyance. And this was beyond a doubt another point in Mr. Braddock’s favour. Willoughby, moreover, was rich in the right way, in the Midways fashion, with the richness that went with old greystone houses and old green parks and all the comfortable joy of the English country. He could give her the kind of life she had grown up in and loved. But on the other hand---- Kay stared thoughtfully before her; and, staring, was aware of Sam hurrying through the swing door. “I’m not late, am I?” said Sam anxiously. “No, I don’t think so.” “Then come along. Golly, what a corking day!” He shepherded her solicitously into the grill-room and made for a table by the large window that looks out onto the court. A cloakroom waiter, who had padded silently upon their trail, collected his hat and stick and withdrew with the air of a leopard that has made a good kill. “Nice-looking chap,” said Sam, following him with an appreciative eye. “You seem to be approving of everything and everybody this morning.” “I am. This is the maddest, merriest day of all the glad New Year, and you can quote me as saying so. Now then, what is it to be?” Having finished his ordering, a task which he approached on a lavish scale, Sam leaned forward and gazed fondly at his guest. “Gosh!” he said rapturously. “I never thought, when I was sitting in that fishing hut staring at your photograph, that only a month or two later I’d be having lunch with you at the Savoy.” Kay was a little startled. Her brief acquaintance with him had taught her that Sam was a man of what might be called direct methods, but she had never expected that he would be quite so direct as this. In his lexicon there appeared to be no such words as “reticence” and “finesse.” “What fishing hut was that?” she asked, feeling rather like a fireman turning a leaky hose on a briskly burning warehouse full of explosives. “You wouldn’t know it. It’s the third on the left as you enter Canada.” “Are you fond of fishing?” “Yes. But we won’t talk about that, if you don’t mind. Let’s stick to the photograph.” “You keep talking about a photograph and I don’t in the least know what you mean.”