Watch for the postman. Look at Betty's portrait. Call on the concierge. (He had been used to dislike the employment of dirty instruments.) Call on the florist. (There was a decency in things, even if all one's being were contemptibly parched for the sight of another woman.) Call and enquire for the poor Jasmine Lady. Studio--think of Betty--look at her portrait--pretend to work. Meals at fairly correct intervals. Call on the concierge. Look at the portrait again. Such were the recurrent incidents of Vernon's life. Between the incidents came a padding of futile endeavour. Work, he had always asserted, was the cure for inconvenient emotions. Only now the cure was not available. And the postman brought nothing interesting, except a letter, post-mark Denver, Col., a letter of tender remonstrance from the Brittany girl, Miss Van Tromp. Then came the morning when the concierge, demurely assuring him of her devotion to his interests, offered to post a letter. No bribe--and he was shameless in his offers--could wring more than that from her. And even the posting of the letter cost a sum that the woman chuckled over through all the days during which the letter lay in her locked drawer, under Lady St. Craye's bank note and the divers tokens of "_ce monsieur's_" interest in the intrigue--whatever the intrigue might be--its details were not what interested. Vernon went home, pulled the table into the middle of the bare studio and wrote. This letter wrote itself without revision. "Why did you go away?" it said. "Where are you? where can I see you? What has happened? Have your people found out?" A long pause--the end of the pen bitten. "I want to have no lies or deceit any more between us. I must tell you the truth. I have never been engaged to anyone. But you would not let me see you without that, so I let you think it. Will you forgive me? Can you? For lying to you? If you can't I shall know that nothing matters at all. But if you can forgive me--then I shall let myself hope for impossible things. "Dear, whether it's all to end here or not, let me write this once without thinking of anything but you and me. I have written to your father asking his permission to ask you to marry me. To you I want to say that I love you, love you, love you--and I have never loved anyone else. That's part of my punishment for--I don't know what exactly. Playing with fire, I suppose. Dear--can you love me? Ever since I met you at Long Barton" (Pause: what about Miss Van Tromp? Nothing, nothing, nothing!) "I've not thought of anything but you. I want you for my very own. There is no one like you, my love, my Princess. "You'll write to me. Even if you don't care a little bit you'll write. Dear, I hardly dare hope that you care, but I daren't fear that you don't. I shall count the minutes till I get your answer. I feel like a schoolboy.