“That will make no difference at all,” she declared.  “Solicitors hate all investments, I know, except their horrid mortgages.  There are only two conditions that I shall make.”

“What are they?” he asked.

“The first is that you must not say a word of this to my sister.”

Tavernake frowned.

“That is a little difficult,” he remarked.  “It happens that your sister knows something about the estate and my plans.”

“There is no need to tell her the name of your partner,” Elizabeth said.  “I want this to be our secret entirely, yours and mine.”

Her hand fell upon his; he gripped the sides of his chair.  Again he was conscious of this bewildering, incomprehensible sensation.

“And the other condition?” he demanded, hoarsely.

“That you come sometimes and tell me how things are going on.”

“Come here?” he repeated.

She nodded.

“Please!  I am very lonely.  I shall look forward to your visits.”

Tavernake rose slowly to his feet.  He held out his hand -she knew better than to attempt to keep him.  He made a speech which was for him gallant, but while he made it he looked into her eyes with a directness to which she was indeed unaccustomed.

“I shall come,” he said.  “I should have wanted to come, anyhow.”

Then he turned abruptly away and left the room.  It was the first speech of its sort which he had ever made in his life.

CHAPTER XII

TAVERNAKE BLUNDERS

Tavernake felt that he had indeed wandered into an alien world as he took his place the following evening among the little crowd of people who were waiting outside the stage-door of the Atlas Theatre.  These were surroundings to which he was totally unaccustomed.  Two very handsome motor-cars were drawn up against the curb, and behind them a string of electric broughams and taxicabs, proving conclusively that the young ladies of the Atlas Theatre were popular in other than purely theatrical circles.

The handful of young men by whom Tavernake was surrounded were of a genus unknown to him.  They were all dressed exactly alike, they all seemed to breathe the same atmosphere, to exhibit the same indifference towards the other loungers.  One or two more privileged passed in through the stage-door and disappeared.  Tavernake contented himself with standing on the edge of the curbstone, his hands thrust into the pockets of his dark overcoat, his bowler hat, which was not quite the correct shape, slightly on the back of his head; his serious, stolid face illuminated by the gleam from a neighboring gas lamp.

Presently, people began to emerge from the door.  First of all, the musicians and a little stream of stage hands.

Then a girl’s hat appeared in the doorway, and the first of the Atlas young ladies came out, to be claimed at once by her escort.  Very soon afterwards, Beatrice arrived.  She recognized Tavernake at once and crossed over to him.