"Have you a spare one?" "Dozens; but they're not very clean." "That's lovely. And let's make the tea weak." "Oh, I can't drink anything strong! I'm an awful counterfeit." "I'm beginning to think so. I--wonder if I'm dreaming." The girls had much in common; they chattered continuously through the short ride, and when they alighted from the taxi-cab they disputed over the right to pay for it. When the guest was ushered into Adoree's apartment she received another surprise, for the place was neither elaborate nor showy. It consisted merely of two large, comfortable rooms overlooking a side-street lined with monotonous brown-stone boarding-houses which for the most part were inhabited by doctors, dressmakers, and semi-professional people. A battered tea-kettle was set to boil over an absurd alcohol-stove that required expert assistance to maintain its equilibrium. Adoree flung out of her finery and donned a Japanese robe, offering another to Lorelei. A plate of limber crackers was unearthed from somewhere, also the disreputable remains of a box of marshmallows; and these latter Madamoiselle Demorest toasted on a hat-pin. "You're the most extraordinary person," her guest at length remarked. "Aren't you going to show me your jewels or--anything like that?" "You probably have better jewels of your own," carelessly replied Adoree; then she voiced a very tame and womanly oath as a marshmallow dripped into the flames. "Pickles! I spoiled that one." "But the Cabachon rubies are real." "Sure. So is the 'square toe' who brings 'em and takes 'em away; so is the bond that covers 'em. Lordy, but they ARE pretty!" "Then the King didn't give them to you?" "My dear, I never saw a king--outside of a pinochle deck. If I lost one of those rubies the Maiden Lane Shylock who owns them would tear enough curled hair out of his beard to fill a mattress. You never really believed that King stuff, did you?" "Why, yes." "I had no idea it worked so well." Again Miss Demorest smiled crookedly. "No wonder you didn't want to go to the Waldorf with me; I wonder you consented to come here." "Your advance work is great--"