"We'll let it go at that, then," she decided. "After all, you know, I am not coming exactly like a lamb to the slaughter. There are a few things you'd like to get to know from me about Jocelyn Thew, but there are also a few things I should like to worm out of you. We'll see which wins. And, Mr. Crawshay." "Miss Sharey?" he murmured, bending down to her as he held the door open. "I don't mind confessing that it depends a great deal upon what brand of champagne you fancy." "_Mum cordon rouge_?" he suggested. She made a little grimace as she turned away. "I am rather beginning to fancy your chance," she declared. CHAPTER XXI Crawshay, about half an hour later, piloted his companion to the table which he had engaged in the restaurant with all the _savoir faire_ of a redoubtable man about town. She was, in her way, an exceedingly striking figure in a black satin gown on which was enscrolled one immense cluster of flowers. Her neck and arms, very fully visible, were irreproachable. Her blue-black hair, simply arranged but magnificent, triumphed over the fashions of the coiffeur. The transition from Fourteenth Street to her present surroundings seemed to have been accomplished without the slightest hitch. She leaned forward to smell the great cluster of white roses which he had ordered in from the adjoining florist's. "The one flower I love," she sighed. "I always fall for white roses." Crawshay's eyes twinkled as he took his place. "Do you remember your English history?" he asked. "This is perhaps destined to become a battle of red and white roses--red roses at Claridge's and white roses here." "Which won--in history?" she asked indifferently. "That I won't tell you," he said, "in case you should be superstitious. At the same time, I am bound to confess that if we could both of us hear exactly what Jocelyn Thew is saying to-night across those red roses, I think perhaps that I should back the House of York." "So that's the stunt, is it?" she remarked coolly. "You want to make me jealous of Katharine Beverley?" "The cleverest and hardest men in the world," Crawshay observed, "generally meet with their Waterloo at the hands of your sex. So far as I am concerned, I am myself in distress. I am jealous of Jocelyn Thew." "You're bearing up!" "I am bearing up," Crawshay rejoined, "because I am hoping that with kindness and consideration, and with opportunity to prove to you what a domestic and faithful person I am, you will perceive that of the two men I am the more worthy." "Think something of yourself, don't you?" she observed. "I have cultivated this confidence," he told her. "In my younger days I was over-diffident." "Guess you're older than I thought you, then." "I am thirty-seven years old," he declared, "and I was well brought up." "Jocelyn Thew," she said reflectively, "is forty."