“You are a foolish, absurd person,” she declared.  “Please go away.  I do not wish you to walk with me.”

Tavernake remained imperturbable.  She remembered suddenly his intervention on her behalf.

“If you insist upon knowing,” she said, “my name at Blenheim House was Beatrice Burnay.  I am much obliged to you for what you did for me there, but that is finished.  I do not wish to have any conversation with you, and I absolutely object to your company.  Please leave me at once.”

“I am sorry,” he answered, “but that is not possible.”

“Not possible?” she repeated, wonderingly.

He shook his head.

“You have no money, you have eaten no dinner, and I do not believe that you have any idea where you are going,” he declared, deliberately.

Her face was once more dark with anger.

“Even if that were the truth,” she insisted, “tell me what concern it is of yours?  Your reminding me of these facts is simply an impertinence.”

“I am sorry that you look upon it in that light,” he remarked, still without the least sign of discomposure.  “We will, if you do not mind, waive the discussion for the moment.  Do you prefer a small restaurant or a corner in a big one?  There is music at Frascati’s but there are not so many people in the smaller ones.”

She turned half around upon the pavement and looked at him steadfastly.  His personality was at last beginning to interest her.  His square jaw and measured speech were indices of a character at least unusual.  She recognized certain invincible qualities under an exterior absolutely commonplace.

“Are you as persistent about everything in life?” she asked him.

“Why not?” he replied.  “I try always to be consistent.”

“What is your name?”

“Leonard Tavernake,” he answered, promptly.

“Are you well off—­I mean moderately well off?”

“I have a quite sufficient income.”

“Have you any one dependent upon you?”

“Not a soul,” he declared.  “I am my own master in every sense of the word.”

She laughed in an odd sort of way.

“Then you shall pay for your persistence,” she said, —–­“I mean that I may as well rob you of a sovereign as the restaurant people.”

“You must tell me now where you would like to go to,” he insisted.  “It is getting late.”

“I do not like these foreign places,” she replied.  “I should prefer to go to the grill-room of a good restaurant.”

“We will take a taxicab,” he announced.  “You have no objection?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“If you have the money and don’t mind spending it,” she said, “I will admit that I have had all the walking I want.  Besides, the toe of my boot is worn through and I find it painful.  Yesterday I tramped ten miles trying to find a man who was getting up a concert party for the provinces.”