"We can't do it here," said Miss Lasker. "Some time of course I should love to read them."

Later they played the game, and touched upon books: their favourite authors. What would lunch or dinner parties be without these useful fellows?

Miss Lasker confessed to a recent passion for Tourguéniev. Rudd must read him too. Rudd said that he would, and she offered to lend him one. Would he have a French translation or an English? English, Rudd thought. Yes, English.

He would be delighted to accept the loan.

"You'll be sure to let me have it back?" she said. "Book borrowers, you know. The sad sad gaps in my shelves!"

Rudd promised.

Who were the best novelists? was a question they then debated.

The great name of Dickens came up; but Miss Lasker demurred and lost her vivacity.

"Don't you like Dickens?" Rudd asked.

She opened her eyes a little hopelessly. "Do you know, I'm awfully sorry, and I know it just puts me clean out of court; but I never could read him." "It's your loss," said Rudd.

"So I'm always told," she replied.

"Why don't you try again?" Rudd asked. “If I sent you David Copperfield would you promise to try?"

"Of course I would," said Miss Lasker. "But I

don't think I could let you spend money on me like that."

"Shall I steal it for you, then?" Rudd asked. "For I mean to send it; that is, if you give me your address."

"I'll accept it," said Miss Lasker, "on one condition."

"Well?"

"That you don't send it, but bring it."

"Very well," said Rudd, and added that he would bring his hands with him too.

He now had to talk to the bridesmaid on the other side, who was not interesting, for she talked solely about herself.

A few days later, on the afternoon appointed, Rudd called at the house in Queen's Gate and was ushered into a small room where Miss Lasker was seated.

She rose as he entered and met him half-way. "You look tired," she said, scanning his face anxiously. "You've been overworking."

Rudd was perfectly sure that he had not, but her solicitude pleased him. He passed his hand wearily over his forehead. "Life is tiring," he said.

"Yes indeed," she replied. "Especially to brainworkers. They give out so much all the time."

She turned to make the tea, and Rudd, trying to talk like a brain-worker who had been giving out too much, glanced round the room. It was a blend of cosiness and culture. The chairs were comfortable, the fire was ample and active; on the walls were

Arundel Society reproductions and autotypes, and the many shelves were full of books, which turned out, on closer inspection, to be the right books-that is to say, Stevenson, Pater, Hardy, Meredith, Henry James, and so forth. These were in sets. There were no discoveries.

"Have you read all these?" Rudd asked.

"Oh yes, many times! My dear books!" she said. "What a solace! what friends!"

"No Dickens, of course!" said Rudd.

"We have them," she said. "But they're in father's den. He loves them."

Rudd presented his parcel, and they settled down

to tea.

Miss Lasker, it seemed, like Miss Dewsberry of horrid memory (Rudd could not get her out of his mind at all at the moment), had a little room of her own and circle of her own friends. Upstairs was a mother who had been perfectly trained to keep her place.

"I hope you'll dine with us soon," said Miss Lasker, "and then you will meet her. Father too. But there's no need to see either to-day. To-day I want you all to myself. I want to know what you have been doing?"

"Nothing much," said Rudd. "Not what I ought to have been doing. Just journalism."

"Oh, but you must," said Miss Lasker. "You ought to be writing a book. Sugar?"

"No, thank you."

"A real book with yourself in it. Milk?” "Yes, please. Only a very little."

"Of course you must write a book. Bread and butter or toast? With a head and eyes like yours you must write a novel. Haven't you anything with you that I might see?"

"Nothing but some paragraphs in to-day's paper," said Rudd.

"Oh, let me see those!" said Miss Lasker, all eagerness and impatience.

Rudd fetched The Post-Meridian from the hall, where he had left it, and directed her attention to his morning's labours.

She read them with flattering thoroughness.

"Of course you are a writer," she said, as she finished. "You have a flair. I can see it even in these little things. Straws tell how the wind blows, you know. Your phrasing is so epigrammatic and terse. Surely you write poetry?"

Rudd confessed that he had done so. Verse at any rate.

Miss Lasker knew it. "Won't you let me see something?" she asked again. "Won't you make up a little parcel of your things and let me read them before you come again? That is, if you will come again," she added.

Rudd said that he should be delighted to. She was really a very remarkable girl. Her intuition was wonderful, so swift and accurate. Fancy spotting that he had written verse.

"You were going to read my hand," Rudd said, a little later.

She laughed. "The converted sceptic!" she said gaily.

"I admit it," said Rudd. "No dreary consistency for me."

""The bugbear of little minds.'" Miss Lasker quoted.

What a clever girl! Rudd thought again.

"Won't you sit there facing me?" Miss Lasker said; and he did so.

She took up a magnifying glass and a slender penholder of jade, and bade him spread his palms outwards side by side.

"I'm afraid they're very dirty," he said as he did so. “Oh, dear, I did hope you wouldn't say that," Miss Lasker replied. "All the men say that!"

Rudd felt humiliated. He had begun to think himself unique. He felt a tinge of jealousy too. How many infernal men's hands had she read?

"But whereas most of the men's really are dirty, yours are beautifully clean," Miss Lasker added, by way of solace.

She examined both palms through her glass in silence.

"Dear! dear!" she said at last. "I'm afraid you haven't done quite so much with your life as you should. Still, you are young yet. How old are

you?"

"Twenty-five," said Rudd.