Dissolved in mirth, Darcy congratulated the amateur upon a highly distinguished performance. “Did Gloria teach you to act like that?” she inquired. “If Gloria would train me,” he returned, “I could do something. But she won’t waste time on an amateur. Do you know that she’s one of the very best coaches in the profession?” “I know that she’s the most wonderful woman in the world. What she’s done for me—” “It’s probably no more than she’s done for hundreds of other people,” said Remsen, and launched out into a panegyric of the actress which would have made a press agent feel like an amateur. With more experience of men, Darcy would have known that this was the language of the highest type of admiration, but of nothing more. In her innocence she took it as a final confirmation of the scene she had witnessed in the studio. “Gloria wants you to work, doesn’t she?” she asked shyly. “Gloria’s such a tremendous worker, herself, that she thinks every one ought to be busy on some job all the time. Doesn’t she get after you? You look far too much of the lily-of-the-field type to meet her approval.” “Lily-of-the-field, yourself!” returned the girl indignantly. “I’ve brought a lot of work up here with me. Can you say the same?” “Guilty! I’m jobless, except as your present slave.” “Have you ever done anything worth while in the world?” Darcy challenged; but the smile with which she accompanied the words was indulgent. He took silent counsel with himself. “At a class reunion I once chased a trolley-car on a dromedary,” he said hopefully. “That made life temporarily happier for a good many people, including the dromedary, who was conducting the performance.” “Sir Monty—my real Sir Monty—used to be an officer in a camel corps,” fabricated Darcy dreamily. “Now, why drag in my fellow fiancé, just as I was beginning to forget him?” he expostulated. “We—you—he isn’t to be forgotten,” said the girl hastily. “Of course not. I’m sorry. Tell me about him.” Attempting to do so, Darcy found that the flavor had unaccountably oozed out of her lie. Pretense and falsification with this man who had unprotestingly let himself in for an indefinite career of both on his own account, to aid a girl whom he didn’t even know in what, for all he could tell, might be only an unworthy prank—well, it simply went against the grain. “No; I don’t believe I will just now,” she returned. “I might confuse him with your masterly impersonation.” “Then tell me about yourself. What would you have done if you hadn’t found a readymade Englishman on the bridal train?” “Heaven only knows! Committed suicide, I think. I may have to come to that yet,” she said dismally. “Oh, dear! The further it goes, the worse it gets. You’ve helped me out, for the present, but—”