Unfortunately, I was quite unpractised in the art of maintaining a t�te-�-t�te with dark and languorous ladies. Presently he rose.

“I must look up Smart,” he said, and left us.

“Sullivan has been telling me about you. What a strange meeting! And so you are a doctor! You don’t know how young you look. Why, I am old enough to be your mother!”

“Oh, no, you aren’t,” I said. At any rate, I knew enough to say that.

And she smiled.

“Personally,” she went on, “I hate music — loathe it. But it’s Sullivan’s trade, and, of course, one must come here.”

She waved a jewelled