They could hear a powerful voice indistinctly booming at the top of the stairs. "Two callers on one afternoon!" G.J. reflected. And yet she had told him she went out for the first time only the day before yesterday! He scarcely liked it, but his reason rescued him from the puerility of a grievance against her on this account. "And why not? She is bound to be a marked success."

Marthe returned to the drawing-room and shut the door.

"Madame—" she began, slightly agitated.

"Speak, then!" Christine urged, catching her agitation.

"It is the police!"

G.J. had a shock. He knew many of the policemen who lurked in the dark doorways of Piccadilly at night, had little friendly talks with them, held them for excellent fellows. But a policeman invading the flat of a courtesan, and himself in the flat, seemed a different being from the honest stalwarts who threw the beams of lanterns on the key-holes of jewellers' shops.

Christine steeled herself to meet the crisis with self-reliance. She pointedly did not appeal to the male.

"Well, what is it that he wants?"

"He talks of the chimney. It appears this morning there was a chimney on fire. But since we burn only anthracite and gas—He knows madame's name."

There was a pause. Christine asked sharply and mysteriously:

"How much do you think?"

"If madame gave five pounds—having regard to the chic of the quarter."

Christine rushed into the bedroom and came back with a five-pound note.

"Here! Chuck that at him—politely. Tell him we are very sorry."

"Yes, madame."

"But he'll never take it. You can't treat the London police like that!" G.J. could not help expostulating as soon as Marthe had gone. He feared some trouble.

"My poor friend!" Christine replied patronisingly. "Thou art not up in these things. Marthe knows her affair—a woman very experienced in London. He will take it, thy policeman. And if I do not deceive myself no more chimneys will burn for about a year.... Ah! The police do not wipe their noses with broken bottles!" (She meant that the police knew their way about.) "I no more than they, I do not wipe my nose with broken bottles."

She was moved, indignant, stoutly defensive. G.J. grew self-conscious. Moreover, her slang disturbed him. It was the first slang he had heard her use, and in using it her voice had roughened. But he remembered that Concepcion also used slang—and advanced slang—upon occasion.

The booming ceased; a door closed. Marthe returned once more.

"Well?"

"He is gone. He was very nice, madame. I told him about madame—that madame was very discreet." Marthe finished in a murmur.

"So much the better. Now, help me to dress. Quick, quick! Monsieur will be impatient."

G.J. was ashamed of the innocence he had displayed, and ashamed, too, of the whole Metropolitan Police Force, admirable though it was in stopping traffic for a perambulator to cross the road. Five pounds! These ladies were bled. Five pounds wanted earning.... It was a good sign, though, that she had not so far asked him to contribute. And he felt sure that she would not.