To end the subject I said merely: “I’m glad to hear that I don’t look as I did; because—because I shouldn’t like to think that the good old fellow had cut me.” _CHAPTER X_ My problem was now as to how to tell Regina Barry who I was; and it would have been more urgent had I not felt sure that sooner or later she must guess. Indeed, she might have guessed already. I had no means of knowing. During the four or five days since her visit to the memorial no echo of our meeting had come back to me. But I was not left long in doubt. The William Grace Memorial was now practically ready for furnishing. Mrs. Grace was about to move back to town in order to undertake the task. Coningsby and I were going through the rooms one day with an eye to details that might have been overlooked when he said, “Well, there doesn’t seem much more for you to do here, does there?” I replied that as far as any further need of my services was concerned I might knock off work there and then—thanking him for all his help through the summer. “And now,” he went on, “I should like you to come in on this job at Atlantic City if you’d care to. You see, you and I understand each other; we speak the same language both professionally and socially; and it’s not so easy as you might think to pick up a chap of whom you can say that. Why not come up to our little place—say to-morrow night—and dine with us, and we could talk it over? My wife told me to ask you.” Knowing that Coningsby had been aware of the state of my wardrobe a few months earlier, I blushed to the roots of my hair as I put the question: “What shall I wear? Tails—or a dinner jacket and black tie?” “Oh, a dinner jacket. There’ll be just ourselves.” But when I went I found not only my host and hostess, but Regina Barry to make the party square. The Coningsbys lived on the top floor of an apartment-house on the summit of the ridge between the west side of the Park and the Hudson. Below them lay a picturesque tumble of roofs running down to the river, beyond which the abrupt New Jersey heights drew a long straight line against the horizon. Sunset and moonset were the special beauties of the site, with the swift and ceaseless current to add life and mystery to the outlook. The apartment differed from Cantyre’s in that its simplicity would have been bare had it not produced an impression of containing just enough. The walls of the drawing-room were of a pale-gold ocher against which every spot of color told for its full value. On this background the green of chairs, the rose of lamp-shades, the mahogany of tables, and the satinwood of cabinets pleased and rested the eye. There were no pictures in the room but a portrait of Mrs. Coningsby, which one of the great artists of the day had painted for her as a gift. In its richness of copper-colored hair and diaphanous jade-green draperies the room got all the decoration it required.