"Anyone can have a brown face," said Gladys. "It may be the seaside or it may be out of a bottle - two and eleven pence at the chemist's. Handsome Men are Slightly Bronzed. The eyes sound all right. But a dentist! Why, if he was going to kiss you, you'd feel he was going to say, 'Open a little wider, please.'"

"Don't be an idiot, Gladys."

"You needn't be so touchy, my dear. I see you've got it badly... Yes, Mr Henry, I'm just coming... Drat Henry. Thinks he's God Almighty, the way he orders us girls about!"

The letter had been to suggest dinner on Saturday evening. At lunchtime on Saturday, when Jane received her augmented pay, she felt full of high spirits.

"And to think," said Jane to herself, "that I was worrying so that day coming over in the aeroplane. Everything's turned out beautifully. Life is really too marvelous."

So full of exuberance did she feel that she decided to be extravagant and lunch at the Corner House and enjoy the accompaniment of music to her food.

She seated herself at a table for four where there were already a middle-aged woman and a young man sitting. The middle-aged woman

was just finishing her lunch. Presently she called for her bill, picked up a large collection of parcels and departed.

Jane, as was her custom, read a book as she ate. Looking up as she turned a page she noticed the young man opposite her staring at her very intently, and at the same moment realized that his face was vaguely familiar to her.

Just as she made these discoveries, the young man caught her eye and bowed.

"Excuse me, mademoiselle. You do not recognize me?"

Jane looked at him more attentively. He had a fair boyish-looking face, attractive more by reason of its extreme mobility than because of any actual claim to good looks.

"We have not been introduced, it is true," went on the young man.

"Unless you call murder an introduction and the fact that we both gave evidence in the coroner's court."

"Of course," said Jane. "How stupid of me! I thought I knew your face. You are -"

"Jean Dupont," said the man, and gave a funny, rather engaging little bow.

A remembrance flashed into Jane's mind of a dictum of Gladys', expressed perhaps without undue delicacy:

"If there's one fellow after you, there's sure to be another. Seems to be a law of Nature. Sometimes it's three or four."