“Will you make this up at once, please?” he directed, handing the paper across to the chemist.

The chemist took it in his hand and turned away mechanically toward the dispensing room.  Suddenly he paused, and, looking back, shook his head.

“For whom is this prescription required?” he asked.

“For my mistress,” the man answered.  “Her name is there.”

“Where is she?”

“Outside; she is waiting for it.”

“If she really wants this made up to-night,” the chemist declared, “she must come in and sign the book.”

The footman looked across the counter, for a moment, a little blankly.

“Am I to tell her that?” he inquired.  “It’s only a sleeping draught.  Her regular chemist makes it up all right.”

“That may be,” the man behind the counter replied, “but, you see, I am not her regular chemist.  You had better go and tell her so.”

The footman departed upon his errand without a glance at the girl who was sitting within a few feet of him.

“I am very sorry, madam,” he announced to his mistress, “that the chemist declines to make up the prescription unless you sign the book.”

“Very well, then, I will come,” she declared.

The woman, handed from the automobile by her servant, lifted her white satin skirts in both hands and stepped lightly across the pavement.  Tavernake stood on one side to let her pass.  She seemed to him to be, indeed, a creature of that other world of which he knew nothing.  Her slow, graceful movements, the shimmer of her skirt, her silk stockings, the flashing of the diamond buckles upon her shoes, the faint perfume from her clothes, the soft touch of her ermine as she swept by—­all these things were indeed strange to him.  His eyes followed her with rapt interest as she approached the counter.

“You wish me to sign for my prescription?” she asked the chemist.  “I will do so, with pleasure, if it is necessary, only you must not keep me waiting long.”

Her voice was very low and very musical; the slight smile which had parted her tired lips, was almost pathetic.  Even the chemist felt himself to be a human being.  He turned at once to his shelves and began to prepare the drug.

“I am sorry, madam, that it should have been necessary to fetch you in,” he said, apologetically.  “My assistant will give you the book if you will kindly sign it.”

The assistant dived beneath the counter, reappearing almost immediately with a black volume and a pen and ink.  The chemist was engrossed upon his task; Tavernake’s eyes were still riveted upon this woman, who seemed to him the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in life.  No one was watching the girl.  The chemist was the first to see her face, and that only in a looking glass.  He stopped in the act of mixing his drug and turned slowly round.  His expression was such that they all followed his