CHAPTER VII.
THE IRRESISTIBLE FORCE Gerty was leaning forward among her cushions and as her visitor approached she held out her hand, still faintly scented with cigarettes.
"Will you have coffee," she asked, "or shall I ring for tea ?" He sat down in the chair from which Trent had risen and replied with a gesture of happy physical exhaustion.

"Let me have some coffee," he answered, "I've been out golfing all the morning, and if you don't prove mentally stimulating I shall fall asleep before you.

How many holes do you think I played to-day ?" Gerty shrugged her shoulders over the little coffee pot.

"I don't know and it doesn't interest me," she retorted.

"After six months of Europe do you still make a god of physical exertion ?" The genial irony of his smile flashed back at her, and his eyes, half quizzical, half searching, but wholly kind, wandered leisurely down her slender figure.