"Nothing," said the other. "If anything is said, swear that Mr. Whittaker told you that the present was for his wife." "I think he did." "That's as may be. Anyway, stick to it through thick and thin that he mentioned that it actually was for his wife." "Well, don't tell any of the others, Dick." "I shouldn't dream of doing that, it isn't likely. I might make a slip myself one day, so I am not going to point out the slips of other people." Which, considering the very near shave the young gentleman had had of making the very same slip not ten minutes before, might be considered a very feeling remark. Meantime Regina had gone blindly along the arcade. She was dressed in summer garments, and not a few very curious glances were cast at her. Twice she stopped to look in shop windows with eyes that saw nothing. The first was a gunsmith's, and the second was a man's window of a distinguished bootmaker's. Regina never knew the exact objects at which she had gazed during that painful peregrination. When she got to the end of the arcade she turned and walked back again, and all the time there beat to and fro in her brain an idea which said that Alfred, her noble Alfred, had gone after other gods--after other gods! Well, in the worst trials of life, in the griefs and shocks and sorrows of the newest and most unaccustomed kind, a woman cannot walk up and down a fashionable arcade forever. When she again reached the entrance by which she had gone in, it occurred to her that she must sit down and think--she must go somewhere where she could be quiet, where she could face this new sensation which had come into her life. Her club? No, not her club. She would meet there women who were interested in the same work as herself. If she lunched, and she could not be there in the lunch hour without lunching, someone would join her. There was a little pastry-cook's where she sometimes lunched when she was in a hurry; she had never seen anybody there she knew, she would go there. To eat! No--no!--not to eat! Regina Whittaker was sure that she would never eat with relish again. So she bent her steps toward this little side-street haven, and, like all women in dire trouble, ordered tea and a muffin! CHAPTER XVII REGINA COMES TO A CONCLUSION Have you ever noticed how accurately women judge from small circumstances. Men call this intuition, and men think of intuition as being on the same level as instinct.