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314
THAT ROYLE GIRL

to the flat above the flat to which Ketlar would return to-morrow.

"We're within a couple of squares of a house of some friends of mine," Calvin said. "Let me take you to them."

"Why?"

"They're near and they can look after you. Some one ought to look after you to-night."

"Why?"

"You're done up."

"I'm not."

"You'll find you are."

"Then I'd better be home, when I find it."

"These are good friends of mine," he urged. "Let me take you to them."

"I want to go home . . . home," she mused. "That's my home, that two-room flat. That's where I live, Mr. Clarke. You never can believe it means anything to me."

"Very well," said Calvin; and she settled into her corner, silently.

At the entrance of the building, wherein was her home, she begged him to return, but he accompanied her upstairs past Ketlar's flat and up the second flight of stairs, upon which he had followed her, on that other night, watching her slim, white heels rising from her slippers.

She unlocked her door, and yet he was loath to leave her. She switched on the light, and he saw that her bed stood in its form of a couch.

"No one's here to help you," he protested.

"Mamma's in there," Joan Daisy said, glancing at the closed door of the bedroom.

"Wake her!" commanded Calvin.

"What for?"

"Wake her!"