with the little fringe. People, as they passed, paid her some attention, and she was frankly curious about everybody.
"Well," she went on presently, "thank heavens I have plenty of will power. I remember nothing, absolutely nothing, which happened before this evening. I am going to tell myself that an uncle in Australia has died and left me money, and so we are here in New York to spend it. To-morrow I am going to begin. I shall buy clothes—all sorts of clothes—and hats. You won't know me to-morrow evening, Philip."
His heart sank. To-morrow evening!
"But Beatrice," he expostulated, "you don't think of staying out here, do you? You don't know a soul. You haven't a friend in the city."
"What friends have I in England?" she retorted. "Not one! I may just as well start a new life in a new country. It seems bright enough here, and gay. I like it. I shall move to a different sort of hotel to-morrow. You must help me choose one. And as to friends," she whispered, looking up at him with a little provocative gleam in her eyes, "don't you count? Can't you do what I am going to do, Philip? Can't you draw down that curtain?"
He shivered.
"I can't!" he muttered.
A waiter brought their first course, and she at once evinced interest in her food. She returned to the subject, however, later on, after she had drunk another glass of wine.
"You're a silly old thing, you know," she declared. "You found the courage, somehow, to break
