"You may say romance!" she conceded heartily. "To be a lord and----!" She leant forward. "I say, how do you get your living now?" "Gone into the building-trade," he answered. "You surprise me!" The observation was evidently meant to be extremely civil. "But there, it isn't so much what your job is as having some job. That's what I say." "I wish I always said--and thought--things as sensible;" and he took courage to offer her another glass of lager. She accepted with a slight recrudescence of primness; but her eyes did not leave him now. "I never did!" he heard her murmur as she raised her glass. "Well, here's luck to you, sir! (He had been a lord even if he were now a builder). You did the straight thing in the end." "What?" asked Harry, a little startled. "Well, some did say as you'd known it all along. Oh, I don't say so; some did." Harry began to laugh. "It doesn't matter, does it, if I did the straight thing in the end?" "I'm sure as I shouldn't blame you if you had been a bit tempted. I know what that is! Well, sir, I'll say good-evening." "Good-evening, miss, and thank you very much," said Harry, rising as she rose. His manner had its old touch of lordliness. His friends criticised that sometimes; this young lady evidently approved. "You've no cause to thank me," said she, with an admiring look. "Yes, I have. As it happened, I believe I wanted somebody to remind me that I had done the straight thing in the end, and I'm much obliged to you for doing it." "Well, I shall have something to tell the girls!" she said again in wondering tones, as she nodded to him and turned slowly away. Harry was comforted. The stress of his pain was past. He sat on over his simple meal in a leisurely comfortable fashion. He was happy in the fact that his enemy had at least nothing with which she could reproach him, that he had no reason for not holding his head erect before her. And the girl's philosophy had been good. He had a job, and that was the great thing in this world. He felt confident that the struggle was won now, and that it would never have to be fought again in so severe a fashion. His self-respect was intact; if he had been beaten, he would never have forgiven himself. He regained his rooms. A letter lay waiting for him on the table. He opened it and found that it was from Mina Zabriska.