The Story of Louie

reet the waitresses of which seemed to crowd upon her as if the width of Holborn did not exist. As she sat down at her little ma

ter a long, long walk down Chancery Lane and along the Embankment almost a

l the week, and then, Louie had thought (dropping the mask for another moment) he had better have stopped away. In a word, she had not been sure that he had been entirely sober. But perhaps in that she had been wrong. It didn't matter. She set a wide differenc

e. Very remarkably, both times the big leonine student, Mr. Jeffries, had been the twitcher. In both cases the actual incident had been the same-a glance

ly Ross were pretty much a pair; but they had surprised her coming from the other. Louie had been sure that on the first occasion Mr. Jeffries had fancied himself to be unobserved, for he had looked stealthily round about him, had waited for a moment, and then, moving

erdo his sudden affectation of indifference. Louie admitted that it would be at her own risk that she put any interpretation that was not amusing on these trifles; but about the glances, their surreptitiousness and the man's deliberate attempt at concealment, there had been no doubt whate

be her living they might just as well be taken seriously; but she preferred to work where gossip was going on. So she began the evening in one of the days in the E of reference books, where Miss Windus and t

r. Indeed, she had given Louie a far too intelligent look when Louie had gratified this hunger for humour of hers at the unconscious Kitty's expense; and

y was saying-her W's did sometimes beco

my dear-not if he wo

ie actually s

either engaged o

Vy, you might as well say that Archie

hey aren

there y

're no age! I don't believe in getting yourself engaged and done

't engaged in three mon

he returned to the original su

to say you'll find o

suddenly said: "Ssss-I'll show

o the cords of the window Louie

hands and closed the window for her. It was the more cleverly done that she detained Mr. Jeffries and managed to get closed

nd I'm going to a dance and don't vant to make it any vors

"No," and turned away at once. M

ind out! I shall offer him some tickets now, for self a

xpect the gentleman I was engaged

Just after somebody, I should sa

hool," mused Kitty Windus. "Arch

specting me!" said Miss Levey merrily. "I vo

thing, my dear," r

" (This reply, Louie ha

or something at hi

an A.B.C. shop-

maid," Ki

vasher

he washes hi

h her blouses, too

oth la

re a little out of plac

ere some example or other had been left chalked up on the big blackboard from the last lesson. Thence she went into the typewriting-room, and back to the lecture-room again. Finally she got from the "library"-the little back room where t

was engaged, or hoped to be engaged, to somebody outside the school altogether. That sounded-odd. Of course if Mr. Jeffries said so, Mr. Jeffries ought to know; but it is a difficult matter to disbelieve your own

o glances. Her reason for certitude was quite unassailable. She had known what they

Louie now sat by the folding door-relaxed, thinking of nothing, or, if of anything, certainly neither of her late resolute pose nor y

t into the library for a book and walked past with it again. He still wore that concealing ulster; the Soames girl had on a brown tailor-made and a cap of

which, lasting perhaps only a minute, have all the effect of a refreshing sleep. She could reassume her mask now. Evie Soames was talking to Weston by the blackboard; opposite her, a pale student called Richardson was c

, passed into the library. A few seconds later still

uie, "for a littl

f the stairs. Mr. Jeffries and Miss Soames would have to come out by the same way they had entered, and Louie rather wanted to see them come out. It was no business of hers, but she had remembered those two glances and the conversa

s; but Louie was not interested in Evie. She w

ment later

kind of glance for which you yourself have hungered when you see it given to another; but not only had Louie never seen-she had never, not even in her own rapt dreamings as a half-grown girl in her teens, thought it possible that a man's l

door, Louie knew that in his former passings a

m. No doubt he was going to see her home. Probably she would have preferr

his hat on, and

st? Mr. Jeffries was nothing to her. If his face shone,

elf now as she had just been to things o

oming up a moment ago to put his exercise-book back into its place, had left one of the doors open. The door moved on its hinges back in

d swept out of Mrs. Lovenant-Smith's French window wit

en on tha

could have shut out a mental picture. Her

the nam

erself with Kitty Windus and welcomed the buffooneries of Mr. Mackie. But it presented itself to her startlingly now. Her own complete ignorance had just revealed a shi

she, after all, not sounded any mystery, and

gracious! What an escapade! Without mercy for herself she examined i

other man at another w

d herself for the first time, had she wanted to triumph? Why had she not seen sooner that what she had really wanted had been to be triumphed over? Triumph?-It came to he

rdinary resilience, her mi

to kiss Roy at their parting she had not known exactly why she had done so: she had obeyed an instinct; a chapter had been closed, and had had to be marked as definitely closed; her heart had known no rancour against him. But now!-she might just as well have kissed him. Now, in this strange place, two strange people-or rather one, for

this shabby giant, whose face she had just seen enheavened out of all knowledge-had told young Merridew, who had told

ie drew a long br

told th

thing and one thing only to be said. If Mr. Je

er again-she fou

ad said that

aid slowly to herself: "Ah-this is going to be more than a

tty and the Jewess, that Evie Soames and the red-waistcoated boy, off to Guildford together to-morrow, would before long be engaged to be married; but Mr. Jeffries, the third person in the commonest of dramas, and Mr. Jeffries, the introducer into that drama of a preposterous, impossible fourth actor, whose name Miriam Levey was resolved to know, were not one and the same man. Louie sat astounded again at his lie. It struck her as really in its way stupendous. Others thought he was below his fellows in this shabby little hutch of a Business School; not so Louie now! She saw those clear yellow eyes again. Ruses and mac

ate with his studies-cadged on his pro

asked to

orn Louie had found something eve