“There are three steps of becoming truly mundane. First, you buy things in a store. Next, you purchase articles in a shop. Lastly, you acquire treasures in an establishment!” With a sense of disappointment at having nothing which she might anticipate, Thurley realized she had reached the last stage. Only yesterday she had “acquired” a tapestry treasure from a haughty “establishment,” the proprietor bowing her in and out with formal regard! She leaned over a stone parapet, gazing at the fog, the occasional rain drops making her cheeks cool and refreshed, although Taffy crouched unwillingly beside her and wondered why this adorable but unreasonable mistress of his walked through mud when her car waited for her signal, to say nothing of his own self being hideously bespotted and, therefore, in line for odious bathing. Some one jostled near her, looked at her sharply for a moment and then said in an alarmed tone, “My dear little girl, what a risk on such a night! Not an hour before you’re due in your dressing-room—tell me, what is it?” It was Bliss Hobart in an equally grotesque get-up, a checkered raincoat and hat winning him the title of Mackintosh of Mackintosh. Thurley turned and held out her hands, the swagger stick falling with an unjust thump on Taffy’s long-suffering back. “I’m so glad—I’m lonesome and queer. I need to be set right,” she protested so wistfully that Hobart kept holding on to her hands, the darkness keeping her from spying how tender an expression was in his eyes. “What’s it all about? I’ve just run out of secrets, so do tell me. Let’s walk on, not stand in this damp. Let me see your boots—are they stout enough? Stand under this lamplight until I disprove your fib—ah-ha, they are _not_ stout enough. I shall call a cab.” “Please don’t. I’ll run away and you’ll have to drive Taffy about. I must walk or I cannot sing to-night—I want to walk miles and miles—” “They’ll miss you and be throwing a scare into Gasoti that you’ve been kidnapped. It’s ‘The Magic Flute,’ too, one of your best ... please, Thurley, just walk along until you’ve told me the worst and then we’ll get a cab—” “What of yourself?” she asked, suddenly feeling elated and quite fit. He halfway unbuttoned his coat, showing an expanse of white shirt bosom. “Full dress for a banquet at which I’m to speak. I took a turn along here to get myself in trim ... tell me, what about your fancies?” Thurley’s eyes were like stars. She caught hold of his arm as if he had been Dan and began to talk. It seemed the most wonderful yet natural thing in the world to tell him everything. The harsh critic, the impersonal man of affairs vanished; he was a good pal walking unselfishly in the rain and under such self-sacrificing conditions that it would be an unusual woman who could not furnish him with a complete line of new secrets!