Burton drank his whiskey and soda as though he needed it.  He was suddenly pale, and his fingers were idle upon the keys of the pianoforte.  The girl looked at him curiously.

“Not quite yourself, are you?” she inquired.  “Don’t get chippy before this evening.  I don’t think I’ll give you anything else to drink.  When a gentleman takes me out, I like him to be at his best.”

Burton came back.  It was a long journey from the little corner of the world into which his thoughts had strayed, to the ornate, artificial-looking parlor, with the Turkey-carpet upon the floor and framed advertisements upon the walls.

“I am sorry,” he said.  “I had forgotten.  I can’t take you out to-night—­I’ve got an engagement.  How I shall keep it I don’t know,” he went on, half reminiscently, “but I’ve got to.”

The young woman looked at him with rising color.  “Well, I declare!” she exclaimed.  “You’re a nice one, you are!  You come in for the first time for Lord knows how long, you agree to take me out this evening, and then, all of a sudden, back out of it!  I’ve had enough of you, Mr. Burton.  You can hook it as soon as you like.”

Burton rose slowly to his feet.

“I am sorry,” he said simply.  “I suppose I am not quite myself to-day.  I was just thinking how jolly it would be to take you out and have a little supper afterwards, when I remembered—­I remembered—­that engagement.  I’ve got to go through with it.”

“Another girl, I suppose?” she demanded, turning away to look at herself in the mirror.

He shivered.  He was in a curious state of mind but there seemed to him something heretical in placing Edith among the same sex.

“It is an engagement I can’t very well break,” he confessed.  “I’ll come in again.”

“You needn’t,” she declared, curtly.  “When I say a thing, I mean it.  I’ve done with you.”

Burton crossed the threshold into the smaller room, where Mr. Waddington appeared to be deriving a certain amount of beatific satisfaction from sitting in an easy-chair and having his hand held by Miss Milly.  They both looked at him, as he entered, in some surprise.

“What have you two been going on about?” the young lady asked.  “I heard Maud speaking up at you.  Some lovers’ quarrel, I suppose?”

The moment was passing.  Burton laughed—­a little hardly, perhaps, but boisterously.

“Maud’s mad with me,” he explained.  “I thought I could take her out to-night.  Remembered afterwards I couldn’t.  Say, old man, you’re going it a bit, aren’t you?” he continued, shaking his head at his late employer.

Mr. Waddington held his companion’s hand more tenderly than ever.

“At your age,” he remarked, severely, “you shouldn’t notice such things.  Milly and I are old friends, aren’t we?” he added, drawing her to him.

“Well, it’s taken a bit of making up my mind to forgive you,” the young lady admitted.  “What a pity you can’t bring Maud along to-night!” she went on, addressing Burton.  “We’re going to Frascati’s to dinner and into the Oxford afterwards.  Get along back and make it up with her.  You can easily break your other engagement.”