The fact is, of course, that she prefers living without you and doesn't want any fuss. The scandal had made her interesting to Thrigsby, and she can find all sorts of silly people there who want to be instructed in the art of being advanced, to think shocking things and to live without shocks of any kind. Linda's shock is keeping quite a lot of people going. I told her I should see you again and she asked me to give you her love, and to say that she is quite happy and hopes you will go and see her play when it is acted in London by the Thrigsby Players. I say, you must have thought me a swine that day at Hendon. That was a Lord and a Lady. These people haven't any manners, and one gets like them. I'm their particular pet just now. You should see me hobnobbing with Cabinet Ministers and theater managers. It is terrible how alike they are." "You'll see a bit of difference if you come to Mitcham Mews," said René. "I'll come to-night." "Good." Rita had come successfully through her ordeal, and she was in the dreaming bliss of having her baby by her side, with no other thought in her mind than the satisfaction of its contact, the blessed charge of its helpless little life, not yet, nor for a long time to come, separate from her own. Ann took René up to see her, and he gave her Joe's letter and told her how pleased he had been to go, and how he was looking forward to her joining him. To account for his sudden disappearance they invented a tale of an offer of immediate work, conditional upon his sailing at once. The whole thing had been so sudden (they said) that there was no time for her to be told or for him to wait to see her. Did she believe them? She looked incredulously from one to the other, but, holding the letter tightly crumpled up in her hand, she decided at length that it was a good thing to believe, and sighed out her thankfulness. She had relations who would help her until Joe sent, and when she was well she would be able to work. Ann had engaged old Bessie to come in during the day, and asked René if he would mind her spending all her evenings with Rita, and sometimes sleeping with her for the first few days. He was only too glad that she had found a task which could absorb her energies. He told her Kurt was coming, and asked if he might bring him over to see her. She had seen Kurt's photograph in the paper and was quite fluttered. "Oh, him!" she said. "Fancy you knowing him!" He did not tell her how Kurt was related to him. However, Kurt blurted it out before he had been with Ann five minutes. René looked sheepish. "Come, now, Miss Ann," laughed Kurt, "you didn't expect him to have no one belonging to him or to keep him hidden away from us forever and ever. Because you are fond of him you don't expect him to be utterly lost to all his friends, do you?" "I didn't know he had a friend like you, Mr. Brock, or I shouldn't have dared to be fond of him--perhaps." "Is that a tribute to my personality or to my reputation."