with him in the West End; he was to beg off early specially for it.

The flat seemed very silent. What a deserted place! It would be nice
to go out and see someone, speak to someone.

She went to lie down.

She lay on her pink quilt, and began on that castle again. It was a
fine place, a real family seat. While she built, she manicured her
finger nails, looking at them critically. She had not begun to spoil
them yet, thanks to the rubber gloves and the housemaid's gloves with
which Osborn had declared his eternal readiness to provide her. No one
would feel it more deeply than Osborn if one of those slim fingers
were burned or soiled or roughened ever so little.

She had a few coppers only in her private purse, but they would carry
her to Osborn, the legal fount of supply. Out into a fine afternoon
she stepped lightly, and the admiring hall porter watched her go. He
was not so certain of her, though, for he had seen many young brides
pass through his portals, in and out every day, ridden always by some
small fretting care till they trembled at the sight of someone who was
always looking, through their ageing clothes, at the ill-kept secrets
of their pockets. He had entered in his memoranda that the Kerrs
rented only a forty-pound flat.

Heedless of the hall porter, Marie was away upon her joyous errand.
She was very young, very healthy, and she looked ravishing. These
things she knew, and they were enough. She went upon the top of an
omnibus to the City street where was her rendezvous, but in her gala
suit, her gala hat, and the furs which had nearly broken Mrs. Amber,