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98 "I beg your pardon," he apologised.

"That's just what I was afraid of," she went on querulously. "You're beginning already. You think because you're giving me a meal, you can take all sorts of liberties. Calling me by my Christian name, indeed!"

"It was entirely a slip," he assured her. "Tell me what theatre that is across the way?"

She answered his question and volunteered other pieces of information. Philip gazed about him, as they walked along Broadway, with the eager curiosity of a provincial sightseer. She laughed at him a little scornfully.

"You'll get used to all the life and bustle presently," she told him. "It won't seem so wonderful to you when you walk along here without a dollar to bless yourself with, and your silly plays come tumbling back. Now this is the Martin House. My! Looks good inside, don't it?"

They crossed the threshold, Philip handed his hat to the attendant and they stood, a little undecided, at the top of the brilliantly-lit room. A condescending maître d'hôtel showed them to a retired table in a distant corner, and another waiter handed them a menu.

"You know, half of this is unintelligible to me," Philip confessed. "You'll have to do the ordering—that was our bargain, you know."

"You must tell me how much you want to spend, then?" she insisted.

"I will not," he answered firmly. "What I want is a good dinner, and for this once in my life I don't care what it costs. I've a few hundred dollars in