Between courses they looked at the May Armstrong's. It was a typical number. On the cover the invariable Studley Girl exhibited her invariable bosom. The novelty in the case of this particular Girl consisted in the fact that she was putting on her gloves. Doing so, she glanced out at you from the corners of her heavy-lidded eyes and smiled at you a red, insinuating smile which seemed to say, "We know where we are going when I get my gloves on-don't we, Charlie?"

"A modern Mona Lisa," remarked Ball. Mrs. Armstrong agreed.

As usual, there was type beneath the picture. This time, however, there was no specific summary of contents. Instead there ran across the bottom of the cover, in bold capitals, this statement:

I CONSIDER THIS THE FINEST SINGLE NUMBER OF ANY MAGAZINE EVER PRINTED IN THE WORLD.

James M.Armstrong

Mrs. Armstrong read her husband's statement without comment. Ball had felt that she would do that. By some peculiar tacit understanding which had grown up be-. tween them in the past few months, they spoke as seldom as possible of her husband. He could not say just how the change had come about, or why. He only knew that it had come, and that she, no less than himself, was conscious of it. Quickly he turned to the leading article. It was entitled "The Paintings of Gustave Dufrène." "Isn't it glorious," cried Mrs. Armstrong, "that a popular magazine like ours actually dares print an article on Art!"

"It's simply ripping!" replied Ball. "You see we are not only entertaining the public, we are educating them."

IT WAS A

He turned the pages for her. BIBELOT. "There isn't very much reading

matter to it. The public won't read about Art. We recognize that, and don't try to force them. Also, we recognize the fact that the public likes pictures of women, rather than men."

Mrs. Armstrong looked through the pictures again. "Yes," she said, "they're all women. . . . And they're all nudes, too, aren't they? How does that happen?"

Mr. Ball reflected. "I should say," he answered, "that there were two reasons for that. First, being a Frenchman, Dufrène naturally tends to paint nudes. If you'll read the article you'll find that we censure him severely for that. Second, we like to print a certain number of nudes each month, as part of our campaign against prudery."

"Braithwaite!" exclaimed the lady, as she balanced chicken salad on her fork, "the more I understand, the more amazed I become at the care with which these matters are thought out. And as we have gone over the magazine together month by month, I have seen more and more clearly that you are at the bottom of it all!"

"Oh, you mustn't say that," he beamed. "You really mustn't, dearest Empress!" Often before he had addressed her as "dear lady," but never until now had he ventured the superlative. She did not wince. When they had finished luncheon, Ball "Come, Empress," he said. "Do move over to the sofa and make yourself comfortable before I begin."

arose.

She did so. Meanwhile Ball went to the kitchenette and paid off Ichi. "I've told my man he can have the afternoon off," he explained when he returned.

The Japanese was not long in clearing up and taking his departure. When he had gone, Ball adjusted a chair back to the window, took up the magazine, and turned to the Letchwood novel.

"The next to the last instalment of 'Lorette'!" he sighed.

"I shall be sorry when we have finished it," she answered softly.

"So shall I. Sorrier than I can tell you, Empress! Just think-we have read every word of it together, except the first instalment."

"And even that you brought me," she put in. "That was the day when I first began to feel as if I really knew you."

"And I you! . . . Do you remember the next time we saw each other?"

"Of course! It was the day you brought the color samples for my car. And we

talked about the first instalment. . Have you forgotten what you told me that day?"

"Forgotten!" he repeated. "As if I could forget! . . . You said you weren't sure that a man and woman meeting for the first time, as Desbarets and Lorette had met, could fall in love that way. You asked me if I thought so. I told you I knew that it could happen that there positively was such a thing as love at first sight.'

"But when I asked you how you knew," she put in softly, "you wouldn't tell me."

"I didn't dare!" he answered. "I never have told you. But-ah, Empress! By now you must have guessed! To me, every chapter of this story has been a milestone marking the progress of our our friendship."

Mrs. Armstrong had been toying with her bracelet. Now she looked up and met his eyes. "I need not tell you, Braithwaite," she said, "that I understand, and that I feel the same. And the beautiful part of it all is that ours is a friendship worthy to be founded on such a story!"

"How won-derful of you to put it in just that way!" breathed Ball. Then, after a silence in which she felt (as he meant her to) that he was trying to control himself, he said, with unnatural calm:

a soul! She will never live beneath your roof again. We have come here to tell you that. It is the honorable thing to do. Until such time as she is free to join me in the bonds of holy wedlock, she will reside beneath the roof of my dear motherGod bless her!"

Coventry was gasping for breath.

"Go!" he shouted hoarsely, showing his wolfish teeth. "Never let me look on you again! But remember-David Coventry does not forget! You will hear from me! You will pay!"

Ball read the last words slowly, effectively. He closed the magazine, and raising his eyes to Mrs. Armstrong's, saw that hers were filled with tears.

"What is it, Empress?" he cried, crossing to her, and laying his hand over hers, on the arm of the sofa.

She shook her head, but did not speak. "Surely," he plead, "surely you can tell me?"

"I ought not to!" she wept. "I know I ought not to! But-oh, Braithwaite!-it is all so true! A woman is so lonely when she is not understood!"

Ball pressed her hand.

"I know!" he murmured. "Do you suppose I have gone through these months, understanding you better and better, without having read the secret? Ah, Empress! As we have read on together you and Lorette have become inseparable in my mind! You are Lorette! Haven't you felt that your

It was the big scene of the novel.

Late at night, when David Coventry was working at a massive table in the library of his Fifth Avenue mansion, Lorette came home. Desbarets was with her. Together they confronted him and declared their love. Coventry's features were distorted with rage. His eyes were narrow slits. He told Lorette that the world had an unpleasant name for women of her kind; but at that Desbarets stopped him.

"This lady is under my protection!" he said firmly. "She is the purest of God's creatures! You are not worthy of her. You have never understood her. To you she is but a beautiful toy; to me she is a woman with

"Yes!" she whispered. "And I have tried not to let you see. But to-day-oh, it has been too much for me! It seemed to me, as you read that terrible scene, that it was that you and I were But what am I saying!"

"No more than I have guessed," he said. "Empress, I must tell you, once for all, that

I

"Don't!" she begged. "Not-not now!" He bowed his head submissively.

"I must go," she declared, rising. "It

is better. Come to tea tomorrow, when we can talk things over calmly."

He helped her into her coat and placed the ruff about her neck. She moved toward the door. Reaching it, she paused and faced him. Her tears were gone. Into her eyes had come a strange expression of shyness and audacity.

"You'll think me silly," she said breathlessly. "Perhaps I am. But I want you to tell me something. . . . Ever since the first instalment, when Desbarets breakfasted in his lavender brocaded dressing-gown, I have had the strangest feeling that you- Well, I have seemed to see you in a dressing-gown like that. Tell me, Braithwaite do you-?" . . . She did not finish the sentence, but looked into his face embarrassed and inquiring.

Ball nodded gravely. "Yes, Empress,' he replied. "I do."

"Oh, I knew it!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it strange and won-derful that I should have known?"

"Everything that has to do with you is strange and won-derful!" breathed Mr. Braithwaite Ball.

She beamed at him. "Shut your eyes! When you open them I shall be gone." He obeyed.

He heard her move; heard the door unlatch. Then, against his cheek he felt her lips. She had kissed him! Still standing there, with closed eyes, he heard the door squeak as it opened, and again as it closed.

For a moment he remained motionless, listening, in hopes of hearing some faint sound of her as she passed down the stairs. Then he crossed the room slowly, and gazed meditatively from the window. There was a puzzled frown upon his face.

"I wonder," he said to himself, "whether she meant to ask if I had one, or if I wanted one?"

IV.

DIMINUENDO AL TRANQUILLO

To Mr. Braithwaite Ball, making his way toward Mrs. Armstrong's the next afternoon, it seemed that the fine rain and the grayness of the day lent to life a note as of

sadness and of tears, which under the circumstances (as he understood them) seemed artistically fitting.

He was going to Her. That was dramatic in itself. And it was doubly so that he was going to her through the mist and dampness. Strange, too, that this climax in their lives should come simultaneously with that of Letchwood's story-the story which had been the means of bringing them together. The whole idea "composed." It was beautiful and sad and suitable.

Already, in anticipation, he had a distinct vision of himself as he would appear before her. His manner would be subdued, resigned. They would talk tenderly. Presently he would be sitting in a deep, rosecolored chair, with his face buried in his palms. She would be standing over him, stroking his hair and weeping. The scene would be one of tenderness, pathos, and renunciation. They might embrace; but if they did so, it would be only to partforever. He could hear himself saying to her wistfully, "I must go away--somewhere!"

The trouble with that was, that he couldn't go away. He couldn't afford it. Darn it all! That was where people like Desbarets and Van Kleek had him at a disadvantage. Still, there were other things that he could say. For instance, he could put it in this form: "I must go out of your life!" That sounded final, effective, and dramatic, without implying anything about giving up his job on the Armstrong publications. On the contrary, if they parted on those terms, Mrs. Armstrong could assist him in a lot of ways, notably by giving him a boost every now and then with her husband. Yes, that was the way to manage it. Through the long, pathetic years she would watch over him, glorying in every upward step in his career, until at last he became Editor-in-Chief. He would think of her,

too. Yes. He would send her flowers. (That would happen later on, of course, when his salary was larger.) There would be no card, but she would always know who sent them.

Arriving at her house, he was shown up to her sitting-room at once. Seated there, awaiting her, he continued to dream dreams. There was no doubt about it-they must part. It was the artistic thing to do. Also, it was sensible. She had kissed him, yesterday. He was glad that she had done it; but-well, it wasn't wise. So far as he was concerned he was capable of restraint, but women were different. When they once got fond of a man you could never tell where they'd stop. There had been a kind of fervor in her manner of late, which, though ever so faintly, sounded the alarm. He had heard, he had even observed, that women, once their hearts became entangled, were capable of amazing indiscretion. Nice women. Of course, if he were rich, like Desbarets, that would be

Here his reflections were interrupted by her entrance. He arose. Mrs. Armstrong closed the door behind her and came toward him.

"Empress!" he murmured, gazing at her wanly.

She did not take the "key" from him, but bore herself with a strange, nervous briskness which was unfamiliar to him. Her eyes were red; so was her nose. Plainly she had been weeping. It was not becoming to her.

Reaching his side, she clutched him by

one wrist.

"Braithwaite!" she whispered in an agitated tone. "It has come at last!"

Ball felt his heart begin to pound. "What!" he cried. "What do you mean?" "I have told him!"

"Told him?" gasped Ball. "Told whoyour husband? Told him what?"

"Sit down!" she said, drawing him to the sofa beside her.

Automatically he obeyed. He was like some playwright, at the first performance of his own drama, who discovers suddenly, to his horror, that some one has replaced his "happy ending" with a ghastly murder scene. He felt weak, helpless, almost faint. What had she done? He heard her speaking rapidly:

"Last night I felt guilty. I thought perhaps I had been wrong in going to your

"Well?" cried Ball anxiously.

.

"He sat in that chair, by the table," she ran on. "I sat over here. I spoke freely of the bigger things of life—just as I talk to you, Braithwaite! I even tried to imagine that I was speaking to you, so that I might give him the best there was in me! He seemed to be listening. I felt that I was making a deep impression on him—that things would be different between us in the future. Then-" She broke off and began to weep anew.

"Then what?"

"Then," she wailed, "then, when I had talked a whole hour-when I had revealed my inner self to him as never before-when I thought a great awakening was coming, he he snored!"

"What next?" gulped Ball.

"I was enraged!" she cried. "I got up and shook him. He looked up at me and blinked stupidly. That made me more furious than ever. I lost control of myself entirely. I didn't care what I did, so long as I forced my personality upon him. So I stood over him and told him about you!"

Ball groaned.

Ball threw up his hands. His mother! He had a sudden vision of her in her little top-floor flat in Kansas City. He pictured Mrs. Armstrong there, and the picture was grotesque beyond the wildest nightmare. Fancy Mrs. Armstrong sleeping on that green-plush davenport, in the parlor!

"No, we can't!" he said brutally.

"Why not?" she persisted. "I should love it there that dear, rambling Southern home, the old negro servants, most of all your mother. You have told me of it all so often that I-—”

"But she doesn't live there any more!" wailed Ball. "That's all over and done with, I tell you! We won't talk about it. Why, I haven't even got the railroad fare! I'm no Desbarets! I'm not made of money! You ought to have thought of that!"

She looked at him reproachfully. "Do you mean that-that you don't love me?"

"Love you?" cried Ball, angrily, as he paced down the room. "Damn it! Of course I love you! But that's not the point! The point is that

Reaching the end of the room, he turned. Then, in the midst of the sentence, in the midst of a step, he stopped short. A horror more complete, more frigid than he could have conceived, laid its icy fingers over him. He felt strangled, paralyzed. . . . Mrs. Armstrong's husband had entered the room and was standing by the table, looking at him.

He had shouted his last words. There was no chance that his employer had not overheard them. Ensued an aggressive silence which seemed to fill the room like compressed air.

When he had looked at Ball for a time, Armstrong turned his eyes toward his wife. Ball did not look at either of them. After his first brief glimpse of Mr. Armstrong his gaze had fastened itself upon the door. Had his mind not been preoccupied, he might have noticed that the door was one peculiarly fitted to the situation. That is, it was the kind of door one often sees in France-a chaste and beautiful door, with shallow white panels, and an oval knob of silver. Ball had observed these qualities at other times. But the artistic features of the door

were now excluded from his mind by a strong sense of its value as a means of egress. Thus, alas! will utility triumph over beauty in life's poignant moments!

From where Ball stood, the form of Mr. Armstrong actually intercepted a full view of the door. Against it he looked particularly large and black. At last, as Ball was considering the possibilities of the centertable as a thing to run around, Armstrong spoke.

"How-de-do, Ball?" he remarked, in a matter-of-fact tone.

Ball was amazed. "How do you do," he returned tentatively.

Armstrong dropped into a chair. "Sit down," he said, in a perfectly normal tone. "I must be going," Ball said.

"No, no," said Armstrong in a voice that was almost genial. "Not yet a while. We ought to have a talk. Of course I couldn't help overhearing you just now."

"I don't remember what I said," Ball put in.

"You told Carrie you loved her. I might say, in passing, that it didn't sound convincing. But that was what you said."

"I hope," said Ball,"that you'll understand just how I meant it. You see, Mr. Armstrong, when I said 'love', I may have"

"Hold on!" said Armstrong soothingly. "Have a chair, Ball. Make yourself comfortable while we talk it over."

Though his horror was undiminished, Ball was becoming less alarmed as to his personal safety. Gingerly he seated himself upon the edge of a convenient chair.

"Now," said Armstrong, "it strikes me that the businesslike way to settle this is for you to tell me why you love her. Maybe she doesn't know, herself. After that I'll tell you why I love her. Maybe she doesn't know that, either. That will give us all some basis to work on."

Armstrong paused awaiting Ball's reply, but before the young man could speak Mrs. Armstrong broke out:

he

"Braithwaite cares for me because

"Hold on!" her husband interrupted. "Let him explain it."

Ball swallowed audibly. "Well," he said,