But she did meet him. His face was set, and he had forgotten to shave. "Don't look like that; it wasn't your fault," she said composedly. "It was--it was----" he muttered, hands clenched. "Rubbish!" She gave a short laugh. "You've nothing at all to blame yourself for." "Oh, I have--I have." Then he turned to her. "Louie, you've got to promise me one thing----" But she stopped him. She knew what he was going to say. "That's quite out of the question," she said. "But look here!" He used the words he had used the second time they had met. "A fellow can't get a girl into a mess and then leave her in the lurch. You must marry me, Louie, if--if----" At that she had found a touch of her old irony. "Not unless, of course?" "Oh yes--yes." But she turned away. "No. Good-bye." "Won't you even kiss me?" "No." But there was a gentleness in her refusal such as he had never had from her before. Kisses came hardly now. PART II SUTHERLAND PLACE I Richenda Earle could have told Louie Causton that an allowance of three hundred pounds a year, paid in quarterly instalments, only permits of a sunny little bedroom and a charming sitting-room in Lancaster Gate on certain terms, of which terms a dipping sooner or later into reserves of capital is certainly one. It is true that Louie still had capital of which she knew nothing. She did not yet, for example, count her wardrobe as capital, nor reflect that if its present standard was to be maintained money must be set apart for the purpose of maintaining it. She did not yet count her time as capital, nor write off the days she classed as days of "looking about her" as so many obligations against the time when looking about her would no longer serve her turn. She did not count her health as capital, nor her wild, resilient spirits, nor her "placeableness" at a glance among those whose possession of some capital may be assumed. All she reckoned as capital was the hundred odd pounds she had placed in a small but sound bank of her stepfather's recommendation, and (she had vaguely heard of such things) such additional credit as the Captain's name might command. But perhaps it is enough to say that she had this conception of the potency of the Captain's name. Nevertheless, her second week's bill at Lancaster Gate was enough to cause her to send for her landlady, and to ask that person whether she had not a single room anywhere empty that might combine the prettiness of her present quarters with the convenience of having all her belongings within a single door. She was conscious of reasonableness, almost of magnanimity, when she remarked that she didn't mind going up another flight of stairs. The landlady had such a room, but pointed out its lack of cupboard-space and the number of Louie's dresses. That, Louie replied, did not matter; she intended to sell a number of the older dresses; and her things were carried upstairs.