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 viduals whom Gregg knew as boasted "free" lovers. Plainly she had a settled conviction that her code of conduct was her individual affair, which others had no right to question and which she had no impulse to preach to others.

"Let's go there, then," Gregg said. "I've been in a sort of smash-up, you see; but I hope it's not too noticeable."

"I think they'll let you in," she said. "Remember, I always pay my own check."

"All right," Gregg agreed, remembering that to pay for herself was one of her fetishes.

She went up to her office and while Gregg waited, he diverted himself with imagining the explosion if Bill dropped in and learned that he was going out to lunch with Mrs. Russell. To eat with any one implied with Bill a definite approval of that person; Bill liked to think almost ceremoniously, it seemed; phrases like the traditional "breaking of bread together" and the significance of "sharing salt" naturally occurred to Bill; never to Gregg. He had mixed with many sorts of people too much. Of course to go to lunch with Mrs. Russell vaguely meant to Gregg more than merely to talk with her in her office; but he was not now bothering about exactly what it did mean; for he was going to do it as the most effective means of serving Marjorie. When Mrs. Russell had asked him where he meant to go, he had named the thoroughly reputable LaSalle, where he naturally would take any of his friends, and where his acquaintance, of the best sort, might see him.

But Gregg gave the opinions of onlookers hardly a thought as, with Mrs. Russell, he entered the big, handsome hotel; he had no reason to, for no one could challenge, on her appearance or manner, the character of