"Oh, no," she replied. "Play fair. I asked you first."

Rudd was in despair. There was nothing in her that attracted him any more, and he would rather die than confess now that once it was her eyes.

"Really," he said, "I-I-"

"Yes," said Miss Dewsberry.

"It's too difficult," he said. "This kind of thing is made up of so much vagueness that words don't seem any use

Miss Dewsberry said nothing for a while. Then she rose and dusted herself and put on her hat. "I think we had better be getting on," she said. They returned to town practically in silence.

N°

CHAPTER XXII

RUDD MEETS HIS FATE

sooner did Rudd see Mr. Luard, the editor

of The Post-Meridian, than he felt his spell. As a matter of fact, so did most young men, and many older ones too.

The editor was sitting at his desk smoking a long and very strong cigar. He was thin and tall, with hair turning grey above a finely proportioned forehead. He was not what the Americans call a "highbrow," but it was such a forehead as often goes with men of swift intelligence. It was very white.

Beneath it were two keen, quick eyes and a thin aquiline nose. The eyes and the forehead were slightly at variance: the eyes had mischief in them, the forehead seemed to be the abode of clear thinking and benevolence. Around Luard's mouth a quizzical smile eternally played, but you could not see his lips clearly because of his iron-grey moustache.

As a whole it was a face keenly alert rather than sympathetic. You could imagine destructive comments proceeding from those lips. Most of all it con

veyed the impression that Luard's true place was in a comfortable stall at the comedy of life.

He was perhaps forty-three, but looked older. This was partly because of a rooted reluctance to do anything so banal as to go to bed. He was always the last up at night, but nine o'clock found him at the office as though he had slept like a child. He lived principally on strong cigars.

Why he edited this or any paper, no one knew, for he had ample private means, and was a bachelor and fond of impulsive travel. Yet here, for the moment, he was, a divine amateur (as some one once called him), and the paper betrayed his presence, for every one was a few per cent. above himself with this influence in the place, while into most of the literary articles Luard dropped a few sparkling sentences which otherwise would never have been there. His erudition was remarkable, and no one could ever forget the occasion when he came in on the morning after the Westminster Play with the epilogue translated in full into heroic couplets, a trifling task of the small hours.

It is necessary only to add that Luard dressed as a country gentleman who frequented the best tailor, and there he is.

"How are you?" he said to Rudd. "Glad you were able to come. Have a cigar."

Rudd was fascinated by him. This was his first editor, and how different from what he had expected!

What that was he could hardly have said, but cuffprotectors came into it.

Luard asked Rudd a few questions as to his plans. "Don't let me unsettle you," he said, "but of course you've got the knack. You would be useful in an office. Here, for example, there are lots of things you could do. We rather cultivate the light side. But if you're going to be a sawbones you must stay there, of course. No sense in pitching all those fees to the dickens."

Rudd said he was certainly in for medicine, but he was rapidly receding from it.

"Of course there's a lot of disillusion about journalism," said Luard, "but it's a lark too; otherwise I shouldn't be in it, I can promise you. Fleet Street has most of the romance nowadays. If you decided to chuck medicine, and you cared for my advice, it would be to act as a reporter for a year or two. They have the fun! Hang about with a receptive mind ready for anything, and go off like an arrow when your instructions are given you. That's the game. It's almost knight-errantry: knight-errantry with a microscope! But I expect you're rather past it. You've begun to write, and few reporters ever do that."

Rudd kindled to this talk. Luard was not an enthusiast: his nature was ironical; but his words had the effect of enthusiasm on his listener. Rudd would never make much of a doctor; of that he had been

dimly certain for some time. Now he knew it absolutely.

He looked round the room. Everything fascinated him. Luard first of all; Luard's clothes; his huge generous cigar-case, like a valise, on the desk; the great scissors; the blue pencil; the mass of proofs; the papers scattered everywhere; the piles of books for review on another table.

Suddenly a head appeared at a side door.

"Sorry," said the head, "I thought you were alone." "I shall be free directly," said Luard.

"Come and have a hundred up."

"Most assuredly," said Luard.

The head disappeared, and Luard turned again to Rudd; but another door opened; and a grimy artisan entered, with a long slip in his hand.

"Well, Jack, what is it?" Luard asked.

"This 'ere," said Jack.

"What about it?" Luard asked.

"Nothing," said Jack, who was very throaty and brusque and had all the appearance of being blind. "Nothing. Only libel."

"Let me see it," said Luard, and ran his bright keen eyes down the lines.

"You're right," he said. "Who sent it up?" "The Boss," said Jack.

"Good," said Luard. "He shall hear of it in the morning. Here, have a drink," and he presented Jack with half a crown.

Jack shambled out.