“Then why can't two honourable, loyal people meet? We only need meet once. But I want to tell you things I can't write—things I can't say here. I also want to hear of things. I think I've got a kind of claim—haven't I?”

“I've told you, Eleanor. My letters—”

“Letters are rubbish!” she declared with a laugh. “Where can we meet?”

“Agatha is a good soul,” said I.

“Well, fix it up by telephone to-morrow.”

“Alas!” said I; “I don't run to telephones in my eagle's nest on Himalaya Mansions.”

She knitted her brows. “That's not the last address you wrote from.”

“No,” I replied, smiling at this glimpse of the matter-of-fact Eleanor. “It was a joke.”

“You're incorrigible!” she said rebukingly.

“I don't joke so well in rags as in silken motley,” I returned with a smile, “but I do my best.”