"I never found them so," Rokeby denied respectfully.

"Well, half of them are too humble, and the other half are slave-drivers. If a girl's got to choose one or the other, she'd better drive."

"That's awf'ly sound," said Rokeby.

They neared a taxicab rank, and the first driver watched their approach with inquiring signal. "Cab!" Rokeby sang out, and the man started his engine.

"Where are we going?" Julia asked.

"Where you like," Desmond answered, "only let's start there."

He opened the door, she passed in, and he directed, "Piccadilly; and I'll tell you just where, presently."

He followed Julia in, and they were away, over suburban roads darker than the streets of the West.

Rokeby felt a certain triumph in capturing Julia. Besides her modern fighting quality, to which he was not entirely antagonistic, he realised that she was a pleasure to the eye, a well-tailored, handsome girl, town-bred, town-poised, of the neat, trim type so approved by the male eye. She knew her value too. She made a man think. Cheap attentions she would have handed back as trash, without thanks, to the donor. She conferred a favour, but would never receive one. Her self-assurance was no less than royal, and a word or touch in violation would have been stamped a rank impertinence. Rokeby, who had made the same pleasant uses of taxicabs as most men about town, knew all this with a half-sigh.

"Where would you like to dine?" he asked. "What kind of a place do you like?"

"A quiet place, to-night," said Julia; "it's better for talking, and this evening I've got to talk to someone."

Whereby she flattered Rokeby more than by any degree of easy flirtation which other women might have permitted, as they sped along the ever-brightening streets.

"We'll go to the Pall Mall, if you like, Miss Winter; it's little, it's good, it's quiet; interesting people go there; we'll make two more. How about that?"

"It'll do excellently."

"We shall probably get a balcony table if all those downstairs are booked."

As Rokeby said, they were in time for a balcony table, and he ordered dinner and wine before recurring to his former question.

"What was all the mystery about No. 30?"

"I don't call it a mystery; it was just a very ordinary domestic proposition; I didn't want them to be interrupted this evening, because, you see--you will laugh--"

"No, I swear I won't; do tell me."

"Marie wants to ask for a perambulator."

"'Him'?"

"Yes, him. Who's always 'him' to the household--the husband, the tyrant, the terror. Ugh!"

"Oh, come, Miss Winter. Osborn Kerr--I've known him for years; there's nothing of the tyrant and the terror about him. Why this embroidery of the sad tale?"

"Well, why was Marie afraid to ask him, then?"

"I don't know anything about it. I'm at a disadvantage with you, it seems."

"I'm quite willing to tell you; that's what I'm dining with you for, isn't it?"

"Is it?" said Rokeby, with a very charming smile which but few women knew.

She hurried on: "Yes, it is. You see, I didn't want you to come in and spoil it all, prevent Marie from asking her husband for the perambulator."

"You were awf'ly thoughtful, and I'm sure I didn't want to chip in at the wrong moment; but, I say, would it have mattered so much? Because I'd love to know why; you're interesting me, you know. She could have asked him another time, couldn't she?"

"You see, she was all ready to-night."

"'All ready'?"

"She put on the frock she was married in; and there was the whipped cream he's so fond of, with a cherry pie; and it all seemed so propitious that I thought it would be a pity if you spoilt it."

"You're right. I wouldn't have cut in for the world. But, I say," he cried gleefully, "what guile! What plotfulness! There's no getting even with a woman, is there? Little Mrs. Osborn and you lay your heads together, and she puts on her wedding frock--"

Julia eyed him with a steely disdain.

"Kindly tell me why a woman should trouble herself to make plans to coax her husband?"

"Ask me another. How do I know? She _did_ it, didn't she?"

"Yes, because he was one of those beastly 'hims,' to be toadied and cajoled and fussed into a good humour before his wife dare ask for a carriage for the baby that belongs to both of them."

"Oh, I see! I see! I say, I'm stupid, aren't I?"

"I'll forgive you your stupidity if you promise me never to marry and make any woman miserable."

Rokeby became slightly nettled.

"Why shouldn't I marry and make some woman happy?" he demanded.

"Ask _me_ another; you men don't seem to, do you?"

"You're not very sympathetic to--"

"Nor you. Look here! Bread and butter, and candles and bootblacking, and laundering, and expenses for a baby when you've got one, are all everyday things, aren't they? If a woman's got to fuss and plan and cry and worry and fight just every day for the everyday things, is life worth while at all? Isn't a girl like me, in full possession of her health, mistress of her own life, filling her own pocket, better off than a girl like Marie who's married and lost it all?"

"_Are_ you?" he demanded, stirred enough to look right into Julia's eyes; and he saw what deep eyes they were, and what sincere trouble and question lay in them.

She fenced doggedly: "I don't see why Marie should be made wretched; she's only twenty-six. Is she to have that kind of fuss every day of her life?"

"She won't want a new perambulator every day, we'll hope."

"Oh ... don't be cheap! You know what I mean. Why can't men meet domestic liabilities fairly and squarely with their wives? Why must they be coaxed to look at a bill which they authorise their wives to incur? Why is a man vexed because he's got to pay the butcher, when he eats meat every day of his life?"

"Since you ask, my dear girl, I'll tell you. People are too selfish to marry nowadays and make a good job of it. Most men always were; but then women used to go to the wall and go unprotestingly. Now something's roused them to jib. They're making the hell of a row. They won't stand it; and nobody else can. So what's to be done?"

"Is this marriage?" Julia asked coldly.