It was a scheme.  Like some great general forming his plan of campaign on the eve of battle, Archie had the whole binge neatly worked out inside a minute.  He scribbled a note to Mr. Wheeler, explaining the situation and promising reasonable payment on the instalment system; then, placing the note in a conspicuous position on the easel, he leaped to the telephone:  and presently found himself connected with Lucille’s room at the Cosmopolis.

“Hullo, darling,” he cooed.

There was a slight pause at the other end of the wire.

“Oh, hullo, Archie!”

Lucille’s voice was dull and listless, and Archie’s experienced ear could detect that she had been crying.  He raised his right foot, and kicked himself indignantly on the left ankle.

“Many happy returns of the day, old thing!”

A muffled sob floated over the wire.

“Have you only just remembered?” said Lucille in a small voice.

Archie, bracing himself up, cackled gleefully into the receiver.

“Did I take you in, light of my home?  Do you mean to say you really thought I had forgotten?  For Heaven’s sake!”

“You didn’t say a word at breakfast.”

“Ah, but that was all part of the devilish cunning.  I hadn’t got a present for you then.  At least, I didn’t know whether it was ready.”

“Oh, Archie, you darling!” Lucille’s voice had lost its crushed melancholy.  She trilled like a thrush, or a linnet, or any bird that goes in largely for trilling.  “Have you really got me a present?”

“It’s here now.  The dickens of a fruity picture.  One of J. B. Wheeler’s things.  You’ll like it.”

“Oh, I know I shall.  I love his work.  You are an angel.  We’ll hang it over the piano.”

“I’ll be round with it in something under three ticks, star of my soul.  I’ll take a taxi.”

“Yes, do hurry!  I want to hug you!”

“Right-o!” said Archie.  “I’ll take two taxis.”

It is not far from Washington Square to the Hotel Cosmopolis, and Archie made the journey without mishap.  There was a little unpleasantness with the cabman before starting—­he, on the prudish plea that he was a married man with a local reputation to keep up, declining at first to be seen in company with the masterpiece.  But, on Archie giving a promise to keep the front of the picture away from the public gaze, he consented to take the job on; and, some ten minutes later, having made his way blushfully through the hotel lobby and endured the frank curiosity of the boy who worked the elevator, Archie entered his suite, the picture under his arm.

He placed it carefully against the wall in order to leave himself more scope for embracing Lucille, and when the joyful reunion—­or the sacred scene, if you prefer so to call it, was concluded, he stepped forward to turn it round and exhibit it.

“Why, it’s enormous,” said Lucille.  “I didn’t know Mr. Wheeler ever painted pictures that size.  When you said it was one of his, I thought it must be the original of a magazine drawing or something like—­Oh!”