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the grand style, but she had a merry eye, and her clothes were not only charming but of a sophisticated elegance.
Reggie, there is no doubt, stared at her for a moment and a half. "Miss Jane Brown," he said slowly.
"I haven't brought my godfathers and godmothers, Mr. Fortune," she smiled. "But I am Jane Brown really. I always felt I couldn't live up to it. I see you know me."
"If seeing were knowing, I should know Miss Joan Amber very well. It's delightful to be able to thank her for the real Rosalind - all the Rosalind there is."
She made him a curtsy. "I'm lucky. I didn't think you'd be like this. I expected an old man with glasses and --- "
"This," said Reggie maliciously - "this is the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department - Mr. Lomas."
Lomas let his eyeglass fall. "I also am young enough to go to the theatre. I shall go on being young so long as Miss Amber is acting."
"May I sit down?" said she pathetically. "You're rather overwhelming. I thought it would be terrific and severe and suspicious. But you know you are bland - simply bland."
"This is your fault, Lomas," said Reggie severely. "I have often been called flippant and even futile, but never bland before - never bland."
"It is a tribute to your maturity, my dear Fortune."
Her golden eyes sent a glance at Reggie. " Mature!" she said. "I suppose you are real? Oh, let's be serious. I am Jane Brown, you know. Amber - of course I had to have another name for the stage- Amber because of my hair." She touched it.
"And your eyes," said Reggie.
"Never mind," said she, with another glance, but the gaiety had gone out of them. "My father was a doctor in Liverpool. He is worth twenty thousand of me, and he never made enough to live on. A poor middle-class practice, the work wore him out by the time he was fifty, and now he's an invalid in Devonshire. He can't walk upstairs even - heart, you know. And he simply pines to work. Oh, I know this doesn't matter to yo