would probably--what was it?--oh yes--have it, in the end."

The wispy little woman has crept up to Ted's elbow with an illegible bill.
Rose has spoken slowly to give her time to get there--it is always so much
better to choose your own most effective background for really affecting
scenes.

"And now I really must be getting back," she cuts in briskly, her fingers
playing with a hat that certainly needs no rearrangement, when Ted, after
absent-mindedly paying the bill, is starting to speak in the voice of one
still sleep-walking.

"But it _was_ delightful, Mr. Billett--I love talking about myself and you
were really very sweet to listen so nicely." She has definitely risen. Ted
must, too. "We must do it again some time soon--I'm going to see if there
aren't any of those books with long German names drifting around 'Mode'
somewhere so that I'll be able to simply stun you with my erudition the
next time we talk over dreams."

They are at the door now, she guiding him toward it as imperceptibly and
skillfully as if she controlled him by wireless.

"And it isn't fair of me to let you give all the parties--it simply isn't.
Couldn't you come up to dinner in my little apartment sometime--it really
isn't unconventional, especially for anyone who's once seen my pattern of
an English maid--"

Sunlight and Minetta Lane again--and whatever Ted may want to say out of
his walking trance--this is certainly no place where any of it can be said.