My hat blew off, and----" "Did it now!" she took him up breathlessly.

"Well, all I want you to understand really is that I'm not one of those silly sort of women that go losing themselves.No.Such a thing's never happened to me before, and I shall take good care----" She glanced round.

He had paid both the cabmen, who were departing, and he and Mrs.Alice Challice stood under the immense glass portico of the Grand Babylon, exposed to the raking stare of two commissionaires.
"So you _are_ staying here!" she said, as if laying hold of a fact which she had hitherto hesitated to touch.
"Yes," he said.

"Won't you come in ?" He took her into the rich gloom of the Grand Babylon dashingly, fighting against the demon of shyness and beating it off with great loss.

They sat down in a corner of the principal foyer, where a few electric lights drew attention to empty fauteuils and the blossoms on the Aubusson carpet.