“What will Miss Rolls do to stop Lord Raygan from wanting to come—­and from saying anything about me to the others?” she wondered.  She could not guess.  Yet she grew more and more confident of Ena’s finesse as the long afternoon wore on.

What Miss Rolls did was very simple, if you had the clue.  But the clue was what Win lacked.

“I thought we were due to meet Eily and Rolls about this time, and look at those wonderful pearls your father says he gets straight from the fisheries,” Rags reminded Ena when the elevator dropped to the basement and began to bound up again.

“So we are,” she admitted, “but there’s something I must tell you before we see Petro.  That’s why I made the excuse about getting out—­only, of course, you didn’t understand.  You couldn’t!  Any floor will do, really—­but we’ll think of the one likely to be the least crowded.  I can’t explain if creatures are pushing us about.  Oh, ‘Upholstery and Furniture!’ They’ll do.”

The two wormed their way out of the lift, which was becoming more congested at each stopping place, the legitimate hour for luncheon now being over.  The floor chosen by Ena had a series of “Ideal Rooms,” furnished according to periods, and she led Raygan into a Dutch dining-room with a high-backed settle which, if they sat down upon it, would screen them from passers-by outside the open, welcoming door.  Besides, the old oak made a becoming background for a blue velvet dress and silvery ermine stole.

“It’s about that girl I want to speak,” she said, when she had enticed Lord Raygan into this secluded retreat.

“Who, the Lady in the Moon?” He was staring at delft plates on panelled walls.

“Yes.  I wished for a minute she’d been the Lady in Jericho.  Perhaps you noticed that I didn’t seem overwhelmed with joy at sight of her?”

“Well, it did occur to me that you might have been more enthusiastic if she’d been a Miss Vanderbilt.”

“It wasn’t that at all,” Ena assured him eagerly, almost piteously.  “I didn’t mind having to speak to her because she’s a shop girl, but because I was afraid if we stopped and talked, my brother might come along.  I wouldn’t have had that happen for anything.”

“Why on earth not?”

“I can’t tell you, Lord Raygan.  Please don’t ask me.  You’ll embarrass me very much if you do.  But will you just trust me that it would be a very bad thing if they were to meet, and not insist on our going to look her up at the waist counter or wherever she is?”

“Certainly I won’t insist,” said Rags.  “I don’t care, you know, whether we look her up or not.  Only she was Rolls’s chum on the Monarchic, and I thought if he—–­”

“Dear Lord Raygan, please don’t think about it any more.  And if you want to be very kind, and make me real happy and comfortable, don’t tell Petro we met the girl—­or even mention her.  You will promise not, won’t you?”