taking her.' She paused a moment. ' Do you know Bilton?' she asked.
' The impresario? No.'
' He is a splendid type,' she said, ' of what we are coming to.'
' Cad, I should think,' said Charlie.
' Cad—oh yes. Why not? But a cad with a head. So many cads haven't one. I met him the other night.'
' Where?' asked Charlie, with the vague jealousy of everybody characteristic of a man in love.
' I forget. At the house of some other cad. It is rather odd, Charlie; he is the image of you to look at. When I first saw him, I thought it was you. He is just about the same height, he has the same—don't blush—the same extremely handsome face. Also he moves like you, rather slowly; but he gets there.'
' You mean I don't,' said Charlie.
' I didn't mean it that moment. Your remark again was exactly like an Englishman. But I liked him; he has force. I respect that enormously.'
On the top of Charlie's tongue was ' You mean I have none,' but he was not English enough for that.
' s he going with her?' he asked.
' No; he has gone. He has three theatres in New York, and he is going to instal Dorothy Emsworth in one of them. Is it true, by the way——— '
She stopped in the middle of her sentence.
' Probably not,' said Charlie, rather too quickly.
' You mean it is,' she said—' about Bertie.'
Charlie made the noise usually written ' Pshaw!'
' Oh, my dear Sybil,' he said, ' Queen Anne is dead, the prophets are dead. There are heaps of old histories.'
Sybil Massington stopped.
' Now, I am going to ask you a question,' she said. ' You
