He had heard Peg's rather loud, insistent voice from the smoking-room below, and had momentarily left his friend to see if anything was the matter. Peg blushed fiery red when she saw him. Her black hair was unbound and streaming down over her shoulders. She wore a brilliant cherry-coloured dressing-gown, and her feet were thrust into gaudy Oriental slippers. "Oh, my gracious!" she said with a gasp. Forrester's eyes met hers indifferently, though he would have been less than human had he been blind to the picture she made as she stood there in the half-light. The brilliant gown she wore, her dark hair, and the bright, confused colour in her cheeks accentuated her beauty, for Peg was a beauty, even if it was of a crude, rather vulgar type, and unconsciously Forrester's eyes grew admiring as he asked: "Is anything the matter? I thought you called." Peg laughed nervously. "Faith won't open the door, that's all. She says she's tired. There's nothing the matter." Then she giggled, and swung her long hair back from her shoulders. "I didn't think you'd come up," she apologized. The Beggar Man coloured a little. "I thought perhaps something might be the matter," he said awkwardly, and turned to go downstairs again, when quite suddenly Faith's door opened and she came out. There was a moment of embarrassed silence. Then Peg laughed. "It's like a bit out of a novelette, isn't it?" she said shrilly, driven by her sheer and unaccountable nervousness to say the wrong thing. "Heroine opens her door and finds her best friend talking to her husband--_tete-a-tete_, as it were." She pronounced the French words quite incorrectly, and she struck a melodramatic pose, one hand flung out towards Forrester and the other pressed hard over her heart. The Beggar Man looked at his wife. "I heard Miss Fraser calling to you," he said stiffly, "and I thought perhaps something might be the matter. That is all." He waited a moment, his eyes seeking Faith's wistfully. The two girls made a strong contrast. One so small and pale and fair and the other so tall, with her dark, gipsy-like beauty. But Faith did not even glance his way, and with a half-sigh Forrester went on down the stairs, and they heard the shutting of the smoking-room door. Faith turned to close her own again, but Peg was too quick for her. She was past her and inside the room instantly. She sat down on the side of the bed and looked at the younger girl with challenging eyes. "Well--out with it," she said defiantly. "What have I done?" Faith did not answer. There was a look in her blue eyes that Peg had never seen there before--an aloofness in her manner that was almost painfully eloquent--and after a second of utter astonishment Peg sprang to her feet and caught Faith roughly by the arm, peering down to look into her face. "What are you thinking?" she demanded.