Chapter IX

In the early morning seclusion of 14 Breath Street, Bond Street, Anthony Brooks showed Vingie his little world.

"This is the salon," he explained proudly. She saw a medium-sized room done in green and gold, vile with velvet, its mirrors molded and twisted and gilded. She nodded speechlessly.

A tall blonde girl slumped across the carpet in a sidelong crawl, one shoulder higher than the other, knees pressed together. The expression on her face suggested contemptuous refusal to put a penny in some one's missionary box. She exhibited one of the house's evening gowns. Wherever trimming could go on it trimming was.

"Miss Dodsworthy, our star mannequin," beamed Anthony Brooks.

Vingie nodded again. She dared not speak.

"This," he continued, indicating a highly modern young person of twenty-two, in black charmeuse that showed every line of her boyish figure, bobbed haired, silk-ankled, manicured and made up to the eyes, "is Miss Buxton, our manageress."

Vingie smiled genially on Miss Buxton with hell in her heart and put out a slender hand.

"And this," concluded Anthony Brooks, in the manner of a chairman introducing the comic turn, "is Miss Glymp, who is learning the business."

Vingie beheld a sallow-faced girl of sixteen with black hair and the sharpest eyes in the world. She wore her hair in a plait, dressed in black alpaca, and appeared to be on the alert for a slap or a scolding at any moment.

"Now then, Miss Glymp!" admonished Miss Buxton.

The eyes of Vingie flickered for one second in the eyes of Miss Glymp, to breed complete understanding. A hand stretched out to grasp Miss Glymp's little paw. "Good morning," said Vingie and the undercurrent implied: "Don't worry, Cinderella. Watch me handle the two ugly sisters!"

Anthony Brooks led Vingie away to his private office. The manageress and the mannequin gazed after.

"Well, I never!" exclaimed Miss Buxton.

"Ts! Ts!" agreed Miss Dodsworthy, resuming a natural pose.

"A fine madam to bring into a respectable business, I don't think!" elaborated Miss Buxton.

"Loathesome!" said Miss Dodsworthy languidly.

A faint giggle startled their ears. It came from Miss Glymp. It was the first time she had ever dared to giggle.

"Now then, Sauce!" snarled Miss Buxton. "Have you tideed your show-room? No! Then go and tidee it this instant!"

"You know, Anthony," said Vingie, leaning back in the visitor's chair, "this place is absolutely fatal."

"I don't understand," he faltered, a little shocked at the use of his Christian name.

"That room--those women! The room looks like a coffin-maker's dream of Heaven, and the two women simply make one's skin feel like sand-paper all over. The kid's all right. She's got some brains."

"What do you suggest?" inquired Anthony a little stiffly.

"Get the decorators in and get the women out I should think. No decent person would put up with either. By the way, is that strange garment on Miss Dodsworthy's rather limp back a fair specimen of the goods we stock, Anthony? If so, I think a rebuilding sale is indicated, with murderous reductions in all departments."

Anthony Brooks made a last ineffective stand against his beautiful tyrant.

"For many years, my father, a respected man in the soft-goods trade, ran this business on these lines. I propose to continue. True we aren't showing a profit, but owing to post-war depression, high taxation and so on, times are bad. However, a trade boom is imminent----"

Vingie held up a reproving finger,

"Newspaper stuff," she answered cruelly. "I don't propose to sit here till my chin sags, making an occasional ten pounds and thanking God the brokers aren't in, Anthony. If we aren't booming in less than a year I cut my losses and depart. I know all the people we want to get, the people with money or influence or both, and I'll get them. They don't live in Surbiton, but Surbiton will follow them, and so will Manchester and Yorkshire. Also, we'll find a new staff. Leave the women to me, my dear, and you keep the books and boss up the commissionaire who stands outside. Do you agree?"

"I insist," he said weakly, "on these ladies being given another chance."

Vingie sighed. "Ring the bell, please," she commanded. When Miss Glymp arrived, her dark eyes snapping, Vingie put a hand affectionately on her arm and requested the presence of Miss Dodsworthy.

The star mannequin curved through the doorway in her filleted fashion, put a hand up to her blonde head as though to reassure herself of its existence and said:

"You wished for me, Mr. Brooks?"

"No," explained Vingie silkily, "I rather wanted to see you, Miss Dodsworthy. The point is, were you born tired or do you consider it lady-like?"

"_I_ don't think _I_ quite understand," observed Miss Dodsworthy loftily.

"Perhaps you aren't well?" suggested Vingie.

"_I_ am in perfect health, _I_ thank you."

"I doubt if you could stand hacking ten miles to a meet, hunting all day in the rain and hacking eighteen miles home, Miss Dodsworthy."

"_I_ am not acquainted with horse-riding, nor wish to be. _I_ have my figure to consider," retorted Miss Dodsworthy looking at Vingie's lines with a disparaging stare.

"Well, the fact is I'm a partner in this business now. If you care to go through a stiff course of physical culture, and elocution, we might be able to use you. Otherwise----"

"I do not think I should care----"

"Fired, Anthony," said Vingie briefly. "Good morning, Miss Dodsworthy. Send Miss Buxton please."

"No wonder women hate one another. Anything more heartless I never imagined," declared Anthony.

"Can't afford passengers, my friend. Oh, Miss Buxton, if you'll wash that stuff off your face, and be taught how to make up properly, and not show so much of your legs, and stop bullying that kid in there, you can stay on. Otherwise, I'm afraid you'll have to go."

"Thank you, Mr. Brooks," said Miss Buxton, ignoring Vingie, "I should like to leave instantly."

"I suggest a month's pay, each, Anthony," was Vingie's only comment. "Now we'll ring up a good decorator, and get a typist along. We must put out these sale notices, and start looking for a couple of decent mannequins, and get on to the wholesale houses. I'll manage the place for the time being, with that kid as my second string. Hurry, there's a dear."

At night she found awaiting her a note from Sir Charles.

"My dear Virginia:

"Scrymgeour has acquainted me with your business transactions. He seems filled with alarm. Personally, I take up the attitude of Gamaliel who observed in another connection. 'If this council or this work be of men it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it.'

"Nevertheless I ought to warn you that in my experience a man who will enter into financial arrangements with a woman to whom he is not related by marriage or kinship is invariably an insufferable blighter.

"Your affectionate,
"Charles Gillespie."

"Poor darling," murmured Vingie sympathetically. "How I hate leaving him, but it has to be. Some day I'll take Anthony down to Wynwood and show how harmless he is."

She was too busy to do more than sigh. Anthony Brooks, far from being one of nature's born gamblers, hung heavy on her hands, grudging the expenditure of capital. Vingie drove him as with whips to a decorative scheme of gray and powder blue, hired two sylphs who displayed frocks like fallen angels, and replenished the stock in the spirit of a girl trained from infancy to depend on clothes. Nevertheless, prosperity lagged.

She sat one sunlit morning, the loveliest thing in London, opposite him, staring across the private office of 14 Breath Street, Bond Street, the curve of her chin propped on her two hands.

"Anthony," she said at last, "get me a taxi. I'm going to do what is called 'enlist the services of the press.'"

"We can't afford any more advertising," began Anthony, but she waved him aside.

"It won't cost anything, you poor fish. You never realize what good copy I am, or how many people I know. Look at my face, my figure, my name, my clothes! News editors have more sense than you, Anthony, especially my darling Mr. Berriman."

At eleven thirty A.M. she found the pleasant man in the vast premises of the _Daily Tale_, his clean-shaven, clever face alert for the possibility of news. Telephones hedged him round, and damp proofs fluttered all about him.

"My dear Miss Lauriston, how do you do? No doubt you bring me the historic scoop at last!" he beamed, with one eye on the clock.

Vingie shook her head and smiled. She made a fair ornament in the soulless, efficient room.

"Only a little personal one at the moment. I've started a frock shop: 'Society beauty takes to commerce.' But any facilities regarding divorce, blackmail, or scandal that come along are yours for the asking, and I'll really buy a wee little bit of advertising space if you insist. Don't you think you could send a nice sympathetic reporter to interview me? Do make it a man though. Women are so hard on their own kind."

Mr. Berriman began to think aloud in the terms of his craft.

"'Beauty in Business; Aristocrat Acquires Atelier; Gifted Girl's Gesture in Gowns,'" he murmured. "I think we might risk half a column, Miss Lauriston. There's always a certain sentimental interest about putting a butterfly to work."

"Of course I take my work intensely seriously, Mr. Berriman."

"Undoubtedly. They always do. If you could spare half an hour at three P.M.? Thank you so much!" murmured Mr. Berriman and bowed her out.

Nevertheless, the rise of the business, the first steps of Anthony Brooks toward becoming Lord Mayor of London, the solvency of Vingie and many other miracles date from that historic afternoon. At the bidding of his chief, Mr. Gilbert Anstruther, late of Oxford University, took a taxicab westward, and wrote the famous interview that began:

"In the Forest of Arden, which clods do call Breath Street, W., I found Titania wielding magic shears. Fairies of surpassing beauty displayed on their lovely forms those gossamer fabrics whose composition is of dragonflies' wings. I would I were some sloe-eyed daughter of the idle rich, that I might veil my charms in the woven lyrics which the Honorable Virginia Lauriston, another of our aristocracy to descend into the hustling marts of Commerce, is merchandizing with such grace and brio in a promising new venture."

Here followed a Latin quotation, but the sub-editor swore and cut it out.

It brought Vingie the Goold-Tamberlaine wedding to dress. Every profiteer's wife rushed to Breath Street, where, surely an Honorable would know exactly the right thing for her to wear. Vingie appeared at important first nights, and the very select dance clubs in a sequence of toilets that wrung tears of envy to ruin many a carefully-wrought complexion. As a crowning triumph she designed the gowns for the cabaret scene in one of Mr. Dorian's remarkable super-revues.

On a day when the sun shone passionately into her little personal room at Breath Street, where she sat at her Louis Quinze escritoire, her eyes sparkling with the delirium of business, the little side-curls that hid her ears darling enough to break any man's heart, Lord Fordingbridge drew up his pair-horse phaeton outside these arcadian premises.

The noble lord descended, caressed the shining quarter of the near wheeler, nodded to the commissionaire, and ambled into the reception room, his gray tall hat slightly a-tilt, a flaming carnation in the button-hole of his gray frock coat. He removed the hat, and a genial smile lightened his rubicund countenance as Miss Glymp came to receive him. He patted her absently on the head.

"I should be greatly obliged if Miss Lauriston could spare me a moment," he rumbled. "Will you run along like a good little gal and tell her Lord Fordingbridge would like to see her, please?"

Miss Glymp, who had never hitherto had her head patted, been called a little gal, or run along anywhere, disappeared in some disorder. Lord Fordingbridge, who stood six feet two in his socks, prowled absently into the salon and beheld the two sylphs posturing in joy-gowns for a lady client. He screwed an eyeglass firmly into position and began frankly to enjoy himself until Miss Glymp led him to Vingie.

Lord Fordingbridge lifted her slender fingers to his lips, looked doubtfully at the furniture, and subsided, with misgivings, on to a window-seat.

"My dear, my dear, this is all very preposterous, and yet it has its charm," he began. "You look positively blooming if I may say so. Charles is widowed and despondent, but he tries to bear up. He asked me to tell you Lycidas is an absolute gift for the Canterbury Stakes. I can get you on at twenties, but mum's the word."

"I gamble in better things these days, George, dear. I'm quite indecently well-off. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Lord Fordingbridge sighed.

"This place reminds me so much of a certain young woman's surroundings in the Paris of my youth," he said irrelevantly. "Still I couldn't very well call at your flat. I should have liked to send Rupert--youth to youth, my dear Virginia--but alas, an estrangement seems to have come between you two. Rupert's a great stickler for etiquette. He declined to thrust himself on you. Y'see, I'm rather at my wits' end, and I think you could help me if you would."

Vingie pressed a bell. "Russian tea and cigarettes, and I'm engaged for the next hour," she commanded Miss Glymp. Lord Fordingbridge sipped his amber drink, savored his cigarette and gazed at her through half-shut eyes. She avoided his gaze and smoked quickly.

"Rupert and I--oh, well I expect I hurt his feelings. You see I couldn't marry him--life's too exciting for marriage--and now I'm busy I never see a man of any sort except Anthony, my partner. Anthony's an awful dear in many ways, but----"

"I know, I know. Never without his regimental tie since Armistice Day," sympathized his lordship, and paused. "I suppose," he went on slowly, "I should be considered an impertinent old man if I asked whether Miss Mauricette Maxwell comes here for her dresses?"

Vingie surveyed him thoughtfully.

"Not at the moment, but she will. She wears one of my gowns in Dorian's revue, and after she saw it, what there was of it, I haven't much doubt. What makes you ask?"

"It's a long story," declared his lordship dreamily. "I regret to say it points to the depravity of man and the duplicity of woman. All flesh is grass, my dear, but some grass is greener than other, and in this case the man ought to know better. Still, which of us who live in glass houses dares cast the first stone? He's a high official if he's the man I think he is."

"Yes, dear, but what's all the mystery?"

"Ah!" exclaimed Lord Fordingbridge with the air of one laying down the ace of trumps, "y'see Mauricette Maxwell isn't Mauricette Maxwell at all. That is, she is as far as she goes--you follow me, don't you?--but the contents of the bottle doesn't always correspond to the label on the outside. She's not British or American, as she sounds. I don't really know what she is. Her mother was French and her father--_je ne sais quoi_. Let's presume he was a Pole, or a Magyar or a Russian. Anyway Mauricette's linked up with Somebody's Secret Service, and she's caught our poor friend X in her toils. That is, I think it's X. It might be Y or Z. If anybody writes a check for her account with you, I wish you'd let me see it before you pay it into your bank. I'd like to hush things up if possible. Terrible thing if it got in the papers. After all none of us'd like the skeleton in his cupboard washed in public, would he?"

He rose to his feet with grave dignity and bent again over Vingie's hand. He passed out to his phaeton, a fine survival of the old school, gathered up the reins, and clattered splendidly away.

Vingie remained at her desk deep in thought.

"I don't like this idea of mixing up business with Foreign Office work," she pondered. "On the other hand it may give me some kind of hold over Rupert. I consider Rupert has behaved very badly just because I wouldn't marry him. Who on earth would marry Rupert, or any other man, at the first time of asking unless she were Miss Glymp or some one like that? He's never written to me, or been to see me, or asked me to dine with him. I think a little cruelty would do him good."

The telephone bell tinkled faintly. Miss Mauricette Maxwell's maid wished to make an appointment for Miss Mauricette Maxwell to discuss the subject of frocks. Vingie put down the receiver with a little gasp.

"Now, how much does George, or Rupert, or both of them know, and how do they find it out?" she demanded solemnly of space.

Her brain began to weave the tortuous, involved plans peculiar to females, all seemingly ridiculous, yet very much to the point if only people knew.

"I think I'll take Anthony down to Wynwood in the car this week-end," she decided. "Rupert is sure to be there. It would seem appropriate for him to know Anthony. Rupert's too fond of imagining nothing exists outside his own world."

Though Anthony Brooks had not the faintest desire to visit Wynwood, being perfectly happy to drowse away the week-end at Mon Plaisir, his Surbiton home,--alternating perusal of the Sunday papers with a little clock-golf on the lawn, fortified by the Sunday luncheon of roast beef, two veg., trifle, and half a bottle of that excellent Burgundy he picked up from a man in the city who unfortunately went bankrupt,--yet Vingie had her way because clay can not presume to argue with the potter.

She took him down personally in the little ten-horsepower "Wonderful" she had bought out of her profits. The limited space precluded much luggage, and Anthony wondered in misery whether he had sufficient changes of raiment for stately surroundings.

Vingie presented him to Sir Charles and poured tea for him on the sunlit terrace. The butler terrified him; he sat in gloom juggling drearily with a cup of tea and a piece of bread and butter.

"The enterprises of commerce hold great fascination for me," declared Sir Charles, with his imperishable charm. "Observe how beautiful woman lays the whole earth under tribute, from the silks and perfumes of the East to the furs of the Arctic."

"Mostly wood-fiber and pussy-cat now-a-days, sir, I'm afraid," replied Anthony with ghastly mirth.

"I rejoice, moreover, that my ward has enjoyed the benefit of your ripe experience in this undertaking of hers," pursued Sir Charles blandly. "You have been the soul of good nature, Mr. Brooks. Believe me I am not ungrateful."

"Not at all. Pleasure I'm sure," muttered the wretched guest, reddening to the edge of his ears.

"Charles, darling," interrupted Vingie, "surely Rupert is somewhere about? I haven't seen a sign of him."

"Oh, he'll be along presently. He got rather hot knocking the balls about on the tennis courts and I think he's changing," explained Sir Charles.

Even as he spoke, a tall immaculate figure, with all the aloofness of a very superior god, stepped through the French window and advanced toward them.

"Oh, hullo, Rupert!" Virginia began in a little bored drawl. "By the way, have you met my friend, Anthony Brooks?"

"Ah! how do you do?" said Rupert impersonally. "Delightful day for motoring down. I trust the car ran well, Virginia."

He seated himself apart, and glanced vaguely at Anthony Brooks rather as a man inspects the bacillus of a new disease, striving as it were to appear interested and failing entirely to conceal very natural horror.

"We're making a great deal of money these days, Rupert," Vingie went on. "I'm getting to be quite an heiress. Probably Charles has told you."

"No," replied Rupert with terrible politeness. "I don't think we discussed the matter. I should love to hear all about it, but Lacey absolutely insisted that I should dine with him and stay over to-morrow. He delivers his big speech on the Near East in the House next week and he wished to discuss certain points with me. In fact I'll have to run away almost at once. My kit is already in the car."

He rose and smiled like the moon shining upon the crests of the Himalayas. "Good-by!" he claimed. "Good-by, Mr.--er--Brooks." With a faint inclination of the head in Vingie's direction he retired as he had come. Sir Charles gazed in rapture at the distant woods.

"We have indeed reason to be grateful to our ancestors for their devoted efforts in afforestation, Mr. Brooks----" he began, while Vingie's teeth met viciously in a macaroon biscuit.

Very soon after dinner she retired to rest, alleging fatigue. No one's appearance at breakfast on Sunday coincided with that of Anthony, and Sir Charles proved to be his only companion at luncheon. As it transpired, he passed the day much as he would have done at his Surbiton home, but he remembers the Burgundy at dinner as something to dwell upon, and Sir Charles' port went straight to his heart. He recalls gratefully an excellent cigar or two and has vague memories of a discussion on trout-fishing afterward. Vingie compelled him to leave very early on Monday morning in order to reach Breath Street by nine A.M. Nevertheless he preserves a tender feeling for the aristocracy. They understand, he declares, the art of living, and devote much thought to that end.

Now, even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.

On a day when the presence of bright sunshine coincided with the weekly cheap train to London from Great Booking (a place of ninety-three houses, not to be confused with Little Booking which boasts only twenty-seven) Ella Fairbody decided to avail herself of the railway company's generosity. She was a person accustomed to make these gentle decisions from which, once made, she never departed.

She put on her gray organdie frock with the cerise touches, which she had made herself aided by a paper pattern, because Ella was clever with her needle and there is no use throwing money away on these dressmakers, and the gray shoes and stockings and hat to match. (Nevertheless she took her umbrella because you never know in this climate.) She brushed her mid-brown hair rather carefully, and rubbed a powder puff over her face with a pleasant, slight feeling of wickedness. There was no need to add color because she had one of those wild-rose complexions, although going on for twenty-seven. She met Mrs. Hickman at the station, who, seeing Ella in her best dress, standing on the up platform in time for the eleven-thirty train which does not stop after Great Booking, said: "Are you going to London, Miss Fairbody?" and Ella smiled and said, "Yes," and bridled a little as though confessing to something rather devilish.

At two-thirty she passed through the door of 14 Breath Street, Bond Street, paused, raised her head, and tilted it slightly to one side. Her eyes told her the place was altered; her instinct told her the alteration was for the worse. A faint perfume troubled her senses; the decorative scheme smote her as somehow unchaste. Miss Glymp, coming forward courageously instead of furtively, in a perfect little frock, her hair perfectly arranged, offended Ella's sense of righteousness.

"I want to see Mr. Brooks. Is he in his room?" she asked in the voice she kept for servants.

"Mr. Brooks is engaged with Miss Lauriston at the moment. If you will kindly take a seat I will inform you. What name may I say, please?"

"Say, Miss Fairbody, his fiancée," replied Ella coldly.

Miss Glymp, internally convulsed by Ella's gown, glided perfidiously to Anthony's room. She found him in animated discussion with Vingie, who, cigarette in mouth, laid down her views on business policy.

"Miss Fairbody wishes to see you, sir," murmured Miss Glymp.

A pale perspiration bedewed Anthony's forehead. Although he had done no wrong, vague sickness afflicted his internal economy. Notwithstanding, he passed a care-worn hand over his brow and said:

"Please bring her here."

Vingie raised shocked eyebrows. "But, Anthony----" she began.

Anthony did not heed. Even as a condemned man on the morning of execution reviews all the delicate and desirable things of life he is about to leave, so Anthony Brooks said a mute farewell to the pleasant associations of the last six months; the charm and genius of Vingie, the business losses turned into a hundred per cent. net profit, the glimpses of a delightful secure world not his own.

The door opened, and Ella came in, holding her umbrella across her body as one nurses a baby. "Anthony, dear!" she exclaimed, halted one pace from him, and held up her face in sure and certain hope.

In the fulfilment of his duty he bent and kissed her.

Vingie stood rooted to the carpet. She saw Anthony turn to her and heard him say: "This is Miss Fairbody, my _fiancée_." There was that in his eyes which almost evoked pity from her, but not quite.

She put out a slender hand, smiled, and murmured: "How do you do?" but her heart cried out for whips and thumb screws to be applied to Anthony. He should never have allowed the situation to occur. "I expect you'll have all sorts of things to talk about," she went on politely. "Perhaps you'll both come and have tea in my room at four o'clock?" She passed out, an affecting figure, far too affecting in fact. As the door closed behind her, Ella put her head very slightly on one side.

"Anthony----" she began.

In her own room Vingie sat lonely, and reviewed the entire scheme of things with marked distaste.

"It's very curious," she reflected, "but I s'spose human nature being what it is, I oughtn't to be surprised. I haven't the vaguest affection for Anthony and if he were to kiss me I should scream. Yet the fact that he's engaged to that terrible young woman has taken away every scrap of interest I ever had in this job. P'r'aps it's because of her dreadful mind. She probably thinks I want him for myself. Vingie, dear, your latest wild oat has run rather to seed I'm afraid. How on earth am I to get out of all this? Anyhow for sheer pride I simply must produce a man of my own."

A light yet firm knock fell on the door. It opened to reveal Ella Fairbody. She closed the door, smiled in saintly fashion, seated herself and folded her hands in her lap. She conveyed mutely that she was glad her clothes were what they were, instead of resembling Vingie's.

"Miss Lauriston," she began, "I wish to be quite frank."

"If there is anything to be quite frank about, Miss Fairbody," replied Vingie in her most silky voice, "that is undoubtedly the best course."

Ella Fairbody sighed.

"The world is a very difficult place," she proceeded. "I've been having a look round with Anthony, and I don't quite like the tone of this establishment now it's altered. Those two mannequins for instance--of course they may be good girls but they seem dreadfully brazen. There used to be a Miss Buxton here--such a lady-like person. And that Miss Glymp has become a very pert little girl. The whole atmosphere here is quite changed; it's--well, it strikes me as not quite nice."

"What is 'nice'?" asked Vingie.

Her visitor smiled even more icily.

"I think you know what I mean. Any woman would. And I do feel that for a young man who's engaged to one girl to be in quite such close association with another as Anthony is with you isn't quite--quite wise. You see, people are so uncharitable. I understand that he's been to stay with your people and you motored him down in your car, and he has had dinner at your flat. That seems to me rather a mistake."

"My dear woman, how on earth should I know he was engaged to you?" demanded the goaded Vingie. "I never heard of you till half an hour ago."

"Oh, of course in that case----" admitted Ella Fairbody, "it seems strange though that he didn't tell you. Our love means a great deal to Anthony." Her entire form shrieked dumbly the one word "liar!"

Another knock fell on the door. There entered the cashier bearing a slip of pink paper. "Excuse me, Miss Lauriston," she murmured, "but this is the check for Miss Maxwell's account. Your instructions were to bring it to you at once."

"Thank you," said Vingie absently. She examined the check saw that it bore the signature "Gerald Loxley, Capt. 91st Hussars" and leaped at once to a brilliant rearguard action.

"Forgive me one moment," she continued, picked up the telephone receiver and asked for the Foreign Office. "Miss Lauriston speaking. Give me Lord Fordingbridge, please. Is that Lord Fordingbridge? Oh, George, the Maxwell check has come. I wish you'd send Rupert down at once to look at it. No, not made out in her name. Yes, a man. I particularly want Rupert. Send him in a car, will you--it's rather urgent. Thank you ever so. Good-by."

Ella Fairbody, whose mind had never worked at such a dizzy speed as Vingie's, felt more than ever convinced of her hostess' iniquity. Vingie turned to her with cruel calm.

"In the circumstances, of course, I shall withdraw from this concern," she announced. "It seems a pity to take capital out of the business just when it's booming, but that naturally is no affair of mine. Perhaps you can spare Mr. Brooks for half an hour to arrange the details? That's very kind of you, Miss Fairbody. Would you mind telling him as you go out?"

He entered slowly, and for a second she pitied him even as on that far-off day at the Savoy when he had seemed so young and distraught. But hell holds no fury like a woman scorned. Vingie turned on him the two glinting bits of green-gray ice that were her eyes and said:

"You might really have told me you were engaged, Anthony. I dislike being accused of baby-snatching by peculiar young women."

Like a cornered rat he burst out in despairing fury:

"What about you? How do I know whether you're engaged or not? Why should I take all the blame?"

"My poor thing," she answered mildly, "don't let's quarrel just as we're about to part. Heaven knows you've enough trouble on your hands. What on earth made you get engaged to such a very--shall I say conventional?--person?"

"You ought to know. You told me once any woman could do anything she liked with me. I'm damned if I can tell you why!" groaned the stricken man before her.

"Mr. Rupert Frack to see you, moddom," announced Miss Glymp.

When Anthony had staggered forth Rupert stood before Vingie for a moment with all his soul in his eyes. She sat with her elbows on the desk, her beautiful head drooped, and she played absently with Miss Maxwell's check. As he tried vainly to harden his heart she glanced up reproachfully and said:

"Why don't you stop being such a brute to me?"

To this there is no more answer than to the classic question: "Why don't you give up beating your wife?"

He commenced to flounder in the morass churned up by his conflicting emotions.

"If only you'd chuck all this----" he exclaimed. She flung out her hands, relinquishing the check.

"All this is giving up me. My partner's fiancée comes and accuses me of man-stealing, I'm abused and humiliated, and still, Rupert, I've played the game to the end, and done what I undertook to do for George Fordingbridge and you. Here's the Maxwell woman's check. It's signed by a Captain Gerald Loxley. Now I s'pose you'll want to run off and arrest him and leave me to fight a lone hand all by myself. Shall I ring and have a taxi called for you?"

"Captain Loxley? That clears us completely. We can now take up the matter with the War Office!" announced Rupert triumphantly. Then his proud look humbled. "My dear Virginia, you've been an absolute brick. Your unselfishness in the midst of your own troubles moves me deeply. Of course I was mad to think you would marry me; I'm not half good enough for you. I should like to see the man who is. If only you'll forgive me and let me help you whenever I may, in however humble a capacity----"

Vingie rose from her chair. A faint glow of victory suffused her oval cheek. She hummed lightly the latest fox-trot. "If you will be kind enough to take me out of this hell!" she requested.

He stood in admiration while she pulled on the smartest little hat in London. He admired the adorableness of her hands as she coaxed on gloves. They went out side by side, a patrician pair, pausing only at Anthony's room. Rupert held the door and followed Vingie into the last arena of her business life.

Ella Fairbody sat placidly in the visitor's armchair; Anthony stood in gloom before the fireplace. Ella Fairbody gasped almost audibly to behold Vingie garbed for departure, attended by a most desirable young man the sheen of whose silk hat, the cut of whose morning clothes made Anthony in his business suit resemble a mouse in the presence of lions.

"Anthony," said Vingie in her clear voice, "I'm going. Your solicitors can settle up the details with mine. This has been a peculiarly odious day, for which we have to thank Miss Fairbody alone. Good-by! Please believe I don't bear you the smallest ill-will."

She held out a hand in farewell. Ella knew that for the moment she herself did not exist. She made a vow that Anthony should expiate this moment all down the merciless years.

"Rupert, darling," cooed Vingie as his car bore them away, "be an angel and dine with me at the flat to-night. To-morrow I shall give it up and return to my poor Charles. I don't suppose the dear lamb has had a happy moment since I went away."

"I should love to if you'll let me," answered Rupert, flinging his traditions to the winds.

In the rich calm of Wynwood's drawing-room, Vingie sipped coffee like a cat licking cream, and dwelt upon Sir Charles with maternal eyes.

"You don't know how delightful it is to share your roof again, Charles," she said peacefully. "I shall never find any one like you as a husband. You've spoiled the rest of mankind for me from everlasting to everlasting. I begin to understand why you never married. All the other women in the world would have scratched her eyes out. The risk was too great, even to possess you."

"I confess I never thought of it in that way before, but perhaps you are right," responded Sir Charles.

"I've come back financially restored and spiritually bankrupt, darling."

"It is impossible to be at once spiritually and financially sound. That is the real reason why I have never possessed any pecuniary surplus, my dear Virginia."

The door opened to admit Lord Fordingbridge.

"I've dealt with those accursed dispatches at last. They are part of the heavy price one pays for engaging in public life. You look exceptionally beautiful to-night, Virginia, my child," he said benignly.

She smiled up at him in great content.

"Tell me how that affair of Mauricette's check ended, George. It all seems part of a bad dream, but I'd like to know."

Lord Fordingbridge creased his rubicund countenance into a reminiscent smile.

"Ah!" he said, "I'm afraid that turned out to be a case of dog eating dog. Y'see, we had our suspicions of the lady and kept our eyes open, but the War Office had theirs too. So what do they do but tell off a good-looking cavalryman to make the running with her and see if she started asking awkward questions about how many bows and arrows we had in reserve and all that kind of thing.

"Well, of course I couldn't know that, could I, so when you got Captain Who-is-its check, I tipped it off to the Adjutant General, and as Captain What's-his-name was acting under instructions, the A.G. became quite tart about it. I'm afraid poor Rupert had a bad quarter of an hour with him."

"So you sent Rupert, and the Adjutant General ticked him off," mused Vingie. She rose gracefully to her feet, and extended a hand to Sir Charles.

"I think for the only time in your life you're wrong, Charles," she ended. "At the moment I am in truth spiritually and financially sound. Night-night, you dear things!"