Now Flossie had never thought of him as a poor man before to-night; but somehow the idea of the good income he might have had and hadn't made him appear poor by comparison. She lay back in the hansom meditating. "If you could only write a play like that, Keith, what a lot of money you'd make." "Shouldn't I? But then, you see, I couldn't write a play like that." "Rubbish. I don't believe that author--what d'you call him?--is so very much cleverer than you." "Thanks." He bowed ironically. "Well, I mean it. And look how they clapped him--why, they made as much fuss about him as any of the actors. I say, wouldn't you like to hear them calling 'Author! Author!'? And then clapping!" "H'm!" "Oh, wouldn't you love it just; you needn't pretend! Look there, I declare I've split my glove." (That meant, as Flossie had calculated, a new pair that _she_ should not have to pay for.) "If _you_ clapped me I would, Flossie. I should need all the consolation I could get if I'd written as bad a play." "Well, if that was a bad play, I'd like to see a good one." "I'll take you to a good one some day." "Soon?" "Well, I'm afraid not very soon." He smiled; for the play he thought of taking her to was not yet written; would never be written if many of his evenings were like this. But to Flossie, meditating, his words bore only one interpretation--that Keith was really very much worse off than she had taken him to be. As they lingered on the doorstep in Tavistock Place, a young man approached them in a deprecating manner from the other side of the street, and took off his hat to Flossie. "Hallo, Spinks!" said Rickman. "That you, Razors?" said Spinks. "It is. What are you doing here?" "Oh nothing. I was in the neighbourhood, and I thought I'd have a look at the old place." "Come in, will you? (If they don't come, Flossie, I shall _have_ to use my latch-key.") "Not to-night, thanks, it's a bit too late. I'd better be going." But he did not go. "I hope," said Flossie politely, "you're comfortable where you are now?" "Oh, very comfortable, very comfortable indeed." Yet his voice had a melancholy sound, and under the gas-light his face (a face not specially designed for pathos) looked limp and utterly dejected. "I think, Keith," said Flossie, "you'd better ring again." Ringing was a concession to propriety that Flossie insisted on and he approved. He rang again; and Mrs. Downey in a beautiful wrapper herself opened the door. At the sight of Spinks she gave a joyful exclamation and invited him into the hall. They left him there. "What's up?" asked Rickman as they parted on his landing. "Who with? Sidney? I can't tell you--really." "I wonder why he left." "I can't tell you that, either." They said good-night at the foot of the stairs, and she kissed him laughing. And the two men heard it echoing in their dreams, that mysterious laughter of woman, which is as the ripple over the face of the deep. CHAPTER XLVIII