himself come to fetch her! She entered the big ugly room, with its dingy
wall-paper and threadbare carpet, its oleographs in tarnished frames,
its ancient centre ottoman, its elderly piano and unsafe, uncertain
chairs. How she hated this room, where of evenings the 'paying guests'
distorted themselves.

But she came into it now eagerly, with bright eyes and flushed cheeks,
and hand held out, only to draw back with sudden chill.

It was Mr. Philip Slotman who rose from the ottoman.

"Joan, I've come to tell you I am sorry, sorry and ashamed," he said. "I
was mad. I want you to forgive me."

"There need be no talk of forgiveness," she said. "You are the type of
man one can perhaps forget--never forgive!"

He winced a little, and his face changed to a dusky red.

"I said more than I meant to say. But what I said, after all, was right
enough. I know more about you than I think you guess. I know about that
fellow, that--what's his name?--Alston--who came. I know why he came."

"You are a friend of his, perhaps? I am not surprised."

"I never saw him before in my life, but I know all about him--and
you--all the same. He was willing to act fairly to you after all, and--"

"What is this to do with you?" she asked.