That was all the explanation offered or asked. "Will you come to tea at five?" "I should like to." "I’d love to have you. And if it doesn’t bore you, would you tell me something about your very beautiful profession? You see, stage dancing fascinates me, and I’m taking lessons and I’ve an inclination to become a professional." "I’d love to talk about it with you!" said Marie Cliff impulsively. "I’ll tell you everything I know about it.... And I do know a little, because I have been on the stage since I was a child." "You’re one now," said Stephanie, laughing, "—an adorable one!" And she bent and kissed the little dancer on the lips. "I’m glad we’re friends," she said. "Don’t forget five o’clock." "N-no," said Marie Cliff unsteadily. *CHAPTER XXVII* At five o’clock that afternoon Cleland, working fiercely on his manuscript toward a climax he had not planned for but which, suddenly but logically developing, threatened with disaster his leading lady and the young gentleman playing opposite, heard a step on the threshold of his open door. "Hello, Harry!" he said with a friendly but vague wave of his pencil—for he had not stepped quite clear of the story in which he had been living among people never born—"I’d rather given you up. Come in and close the door." "I couldn’t keep away," said Belter hoarsely. He came in and closed the door. He looked even more grey and haggard than he had the night before. "I expected you this morning," said Cleland, stepping clear of his story now, and looking very soberly at his old school-friend. "I didn’t intend to come at all." He seated himself in the chair indicated. "But I couldn’t keep away." "You look about all in." "I didn’t sleep." Cleland got up, walked to the ice-box, knocked off a bit of ice with a tack-hammer, and leisurely constructed a highball. "Here you are, Harry. I can’t; I’m working. There are cigars by your elbow, cigarettes, too." Belter looked vacantly at the iced bracer, then he dropped both elbows on the edge of the desk and took, his drawn face between his hands. Cleland began to pace the studio. Presently he halted by Belter’s chair. "Hell," he said pleasantly, "cut out the tragedy! It’s good enough for my novel, where the poor devils I write about have to do what I make ’em. But you and I are free to do what we choose." "Yes.... And I’ve done it.... I’ve done what I chose. Where has it landed me, Cleland?" He looked at the frosty glass, pushed it away from him: "That was a sorry spectacle I made of myself last night. Can you beat that for degradation—a man who has made a damnable failure of marriage, skulking at his wife’s heels to snap and snarl at any decent man who is civil to her?" "Don’t talk so bitterly——" "I’m indulging in a luxury, Cleland—the luxury of truth, of honesty, of straight thinking.... I’ve been bragging about it, celebrating it, extolling it for years. But I never did any until last night."