“Stella won’t,” she admitted doubtfully.  “She’s going to Sherry’s.  I’d just as soon be out,” she went on ruminatingly.  “Shouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t bring that guy in, after all.”

He had already rung the bell of the lift.

“Look at me!” she exclaimed ironically.  “Nice sort of an object I am to take out!  Got a raincoat on—­though it’s dry enough—­because my coat’s gone at the seams.”

“If you don’t stop talking like that,” he declared, “I’ll march into one of those great stores and order everything a woman wants to wear.  Look at me.  Did you ever see such clothes!”

“A man’s different,” she protested.  “Besides, you’ve got a way with you of looking as though you could wear better clothes if you wanted to—­something superior.  I don’t like it.  I should like you better if you were common.”

“You’re going to like me better,” he assured her, “because we are going to have a cocktail together within the next three minutes.  Look at you—­pale as you can stick.  I bet you haven’t had a mouthful of food all day.  Neither have I, except a slice of bread and butter with my tea this morning.  We’re a nice sort of couple to talk about clothes.  What we want is food.”

She swayed for a moment and pretended that she tripped.  He caught her arm and steadied her.  She jerked it from him.

“Have your own way,” she yielded.

They reached the corner of the street, plunged into the surging crowds of Broadway, passed into the huge restaurant, were once more pounced upon by a businesslike but slightly patronizing maitre d’hotel, and escorted to a remote table in a sort of annex of the room.  Philip pushed the menu away.

“Two cocktails—­the quickest you ever mixed in your life,” he ordered.  “Quicker than that, mind.”

The man was back again almost at once with two frosted glasses upon a tray.  They laughed together almost like children as they set them down empty.

“I know what I want, and you, too, by the look of you,” he continued—­“a beefsteak, with some more of that green corn you gave me the other day, and fried potatoes, and Burgundy.  We’ll have some oysters first while we wait.”

She sighed.

“I don’t mean to come here with you again,” she said, a little impatiently.  “I don’t know why I give in to you.  You’re not strong, you know.  You are a weak man.  Women will always look after you; they’ll always help you in trouble—­I suppose they’ll always care for you.  Can’t think why I do what you want me to.  Guess I was near starving.”

He laughed.

“You don’t know much about me yet,” he reminded her.

“You don’t know much about yourself,” she retorted glibly.  “Why, according to your own confession, you only started life a few weeks ago.  I fancy what went before didn’t count for much.  You’ve been fretted and tied up somewhere.  You haven’t had the chance of getting big like so many of our American men.  What are you going to do with this play of yours?”