She broke off in her speech.  Her companion was staring at Philip, who was returning his scrutiny with an air of mild interrogation.

“Say,” the young man enquired, “didn’t I meet you on the Elletania?  Aren’t you Mr. Douglas Romilly?”

Philip shook his head.

“My name is Ware,” he pronounced, “Merton Ware.  I have certainly never been on the Elletania and I don’t remember having met you before.”

The young man whose name was Felix appeared almost stupefied.

“Gee whiz!” he muttered.  “Excuse me, sir, but I never saw such a likeness before—­never!”

“Well, shake hands with Miss Grimes quickly and come along,” Stella enjoined.  “Remember I only have half an hour for dinner now.  You coming to see the show, Martha?”

“Not to-night,” that young woman declared firmly.

The two passed on after a few more moments of amiable but, on the part of the young man, somewhat dazed conversation.  Philip had resumed the consumption of his chicken.  He raised an over-filled glass to his lips steadily and drank it without spilling a drop.

“Mistook me for some one,” he remarked coolly.

She nodded.

“Man who disappeared from the Waldorf Astoria.  They made quite a fuss about him in the newspapers.  I shouldn’t have said you were the least like him—­to judge by his pictures, anyway.”

Philip shrugged his shoulders.  He seemed very little interested.

“I don’t often read the newspapers....  So that is Stella.”

“That is Stella,” she assented, a little defiantly.  “And if I were she—­I mean if I were as good-looking as she is—­I’d be in her place.”

“I wonder whether you would?” he observed thoughtfully.

“Oh! don’t bother me with your problems,” she replied.  “Does it run to coffee?”

“Of course it does,” he agreed, “and a liqueur, if you like.”

“If you mean a cordial, I’ll have some of that green stuff,” she decided.  “Don’t know when I shall get another dinner like this again.”

“Well, that rests with you,” he assured her.  “I am very lonely just now.  Later on it will be different.  We’ll come again next week, if you like.”

“Better see how you feel about it when the time comes,” she answered practically.  “Besides, I’m not sure they’d let me in here again.  Did you see Stella’s coat?  Fancy feeling fur like that up against your chin!  Fancy—­”

She broke off and sipped her coffee broodingly.

“Those things are immaterial in themselves,” he reminded her.  “It’s just a question how much happiness they have brought her, whether the thing pays or not.”

“Of course it pays!” she declared, almost passionately.  “You’ve never seen my rooms or my drunken father.  I can tell you what they’re like, though.  They’re ugly, they’re tawdry, they’re untidy, when I’ve any work to do, they’re scarcely clean.  Our meals are thrown at us—­we’re always behind with the rent.  There isn’t anything to look at or listen to that isn’t ugly.  You haven’t known what it is to feel the grim pang of a constant hideousness crawling into your senses, stupefying you almost with a sort of misery—­oh, I can’t describe it!”