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Title: December Love

Author: Robert Hichens

Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #6616]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DECEMBER LOVE ***




Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger

DECEMBER LOVE

By Robert Hichens

Contents

DECEMBER LOVE

By Robert Hichens

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

Alick Craven, who was something in the Foreign Office, had been living in London, except for an interval of military service during the war, for several years, and had plenty of interesting friends and acquaintances, when one autumn day, in a club, Frances Braybrooke, who knew everybody, sat down beside him and began, as his way was, talking of people. Braybrooke talked well and was an exceedingly agreeable man, but he seldom discussed ideas. His main interest lay in the doings of the human race, the "human animal," to use a favorite phrase of his, in what the human race was "up to." People were his delight. He could not live away from the centre of their activities. He was never tired of meeting new faces, and would go to endless trouble to bring an interesting personality within the circle of his acquaintance. Craven's comparative indifference about society, his laziness in social matters, was a perpetual cause of surprise to Braybrooke, who nevertheless was always ready to do Craven a good turn, whether he wanted it done to him or not. Indeed, Craven was indebted to his kind old friend for various introductions which had led to pleasant times, and for these he was quite grateful. Braybrooke was much older than most people, though he seldom looked it, and decades older than Craven, and he had a genial way of taking those younger than himself in charge, always with a view to their social advancement. He was a very ancient hand at the social game; he loved to play it; and he wanted as many as possible to join in, provided, of course, that they were "suitable" for such a purpose. Perhaps he slightly resembled "the world's governess," as a witty woman had once called him. But he was really a capital fellow and a mine of worldly wisdom.

On the occasion in question, after chatting for about an hour, he happened to mention Lady Sellingworth—"Adela Sellingworth," as he called her. Craven did not know her, and said so in the simplest way.

"I don't know Lady Sellingworth."

Braybrooke sat for a moment in silence looking at Craven over his carefully trimmed grey and brown beard.

"How very strange!" he said at last.

"Why is it strange?"

"All these years in London and not know Adela Sellingworth!"

"I know about her, of course. I know she was a famous beauty when King Edward was Prince of Wales, and was tremendously prominent in society after he came to the throne. But I have never seen her about since I have been settled in London. To tell the honest truth, I thought Lady Sellingworth was what is called a back number."

"Adela Sellingworth a back number!"

Braybrooke bristled gently and caught his beard-point with his broad-fingered right hand. His small, observant hazel eyes rebuked Craven mildly, and he slightly shook his head, covered with thick, crinkly and carefully brushed hair.

"Well—but," Craven protested. "But surely she long ago retired from the fray! Isn't she over sixty?"

"She is about sixty. But that is nothing nowadays."

"No doubt she had a terrific career."

"Terrific! What do you mean exactly by terrific?"

"Why, that she was what used to be called a professional beauty, a social ruler, immensely distinguished and smart and all that sort of thing. But I understood that she suddenly gave it all up. I remember someone telling me that she abdicated, and that those who knew her best were most surprised about it."

"A woman told you that, no doubt."

"Yes, I think it was a woman."

"Anything else?"

"If I remember rightly, she said that Lady Sellingworth was the very last woman one had expected to do such a thing, that she was one of the old guard, whose motto is 'never give up,' that she went on expecting, and tacitly demanding, the love and admiration which most men only give with sincerity to young women long after she was no more young and had begun to lose her looks. Perhaps it was all lies."

"No, no. There is something in it."

He looked meditative.

"It certainly was a sudden business," he presently added. "I have often thought so. It came about after her return from Paris some ten years ago—that time when her jewels were stolen."

"Were they?" said Craven.

"Were they!"

Braybrooke's tone just then really did rather suggest the world's governess.

"My dear fellow—yes, they were, to the tune of about fifty thousand pounds."

"What a dreadful business! Did she get them back?"

"No. She never even tried to. But, of course, it came out eventually."

"It seems to me that everything anyone wishes to hide does come out eventually in London," said Craven, with perhaps rather youthful cynicism. "But surely Lady Sellingworth must have wanted to get her jewels back. What can have induced her to be silent about such a loss?"

"It's a mystery. I have wondered why—often," said Braybrooke, gently stroking his beard.

He even slightly wrinkled his forehead, until he remembered that such an indulgence is apt to lead to permanent lines, whereupon he abruptly became as smooth as a baby, and added:

"She must have had a tremendous reason. But I'm not aware that anyone knows what it is unless—" he paused meditatively. "I have sometimes suspected that perhaps Seymour Portman—"

"Sir Seymour, the general?"

"Yes. He knows her better than anyone else does. He cared for her when she was a girl, through both her marriages, and cares for her just as much still, I believe."

"How were her jewels stolen?" Craven asked.

Braybrooke had roused his interest. A woman who lost jewels worth fifty thousand pounds, and made no effort to get them back, must surely be an extraordinary creature.

"They were stolen in Paris at the Gare du Nord out of a first-class compartment reserved for Adela Sellingworth. That much came out through her maid."

"And nothing was done?"

"I believe not. Adela Sellingworth is said to have behaved most fatalistically when the story came out. She said the jewels were gone long ago, and there was an end of it, and that she couldn't be bothered."

"Bothered!—about such a loss?"

"And, what's more, she got rid of the maid."

"Very odd!"

"It was. Very odd! Her abdication also was very odd and abrupt. She changed her way of living, gave up society, let her hair go white, allowed her face to do whatever it chose, and, in fact, became very much what she is now—the most charming old woman in London."

"Oh, is she charming?"

"Is she charming!"

Braybrooke raised his thick eyebrows and looked really pitiful.

"I will see if I can take you there one day," he continued, after a rebuking pause. "But don't count on it. She doesn't see very many people. Still, I think she might like you. You have tastes in common. She is interested in everything that is interesting—except, perhaps, in love affairs. She doesn't seem to care about love affairs. And yet some young girls are devoted to her."

"Perhaps that is because she has abdicated."

Braybrooke looked at Craven with rather sharp inquiry.

"I only mean that I don't think, as a rule, young girls are very fond of elderly women whose motto is 'never give up.'" Craven explained.

"Ah?"

Braybrooke was silent. Then, lighting a cigarette, he remarked:

"Youth is very charming, but one must say that it is set free from cruelty."

"I agree with you. But what about the old guard?" Craven asked. "Is that always so very kind?"

Then he suddenly remembered that in London there is an "old guard" of men, and that undoubtedly Braybrooke belonged to it; and, afraid that he was blundering, he changed the conversation.

CHAPTER II

A fortnight later Craven received a note from his old friend saying that Braybrooke had spoken about him to "Adela Sellingworth," and that she would be glad to know him. Braybrooke was off to Paris to stay with the Mariguys, but all Craven had to do was to leave a card at Number 18A, Berkeley Square, and when this formality had been accomplished Lady Sellingworth would no doubt write to him and suggest an hour for a meeting. Craven thanked his friend, left a card at Number 18A, and a day or two later received an invitation to go to tea with Lady Sellingworth on the following Sunday. He stayed in London on purpose to do this, although he had promised to go into the country from Saturday to Monday. Braybrooke had succeeded in rousing keen interest in him. It was not Craven's habit to be at the feet of old ladies. He much preferred to them young or youngish women, unmarried or married. But Lady Sellingworth "intrigued" him. She had been a reigning beauty. She had "lived" as not many English women had lived. And then—the stolen jewels and her extraordinary indifference about their loss!

Decidedly he wanted to know her!

Number 18A, Berkeley Square was a large town mansion, and on the green front door there was a plate upon which was engraved in bold lettering, "The Dowager Countess of Sellingworth." Craven looked at this plate and at the big knocker above it as he rang the electric bell. Almost as soon as he had pressed the button the big door was opened, and a very tall footman in a pale pink livery appeared. Behind him stood a handsome, middle-aged butler.

A large square hall was before Craven, with a hooded chair and a big fire burning on a wide hearth. Beyond was a fine staircase, which had a balustrade of beautifully wrought ironwork with gold ornamentations. He gave his hat, coat and stick to the footman—after taking his name, the butler had moved away, and was pausing not far from the staircase—Craven suddenly felt as if he stood in a London more solid, more dignified, more peaceful, even more gentlemanlike, than the London he was accustomed to. There seemed to be in this house a large calm, an almost remote stillness, which put modern Bond Street, just around the corner, at a very great distance. As he followed the butler, walking softly, up the beautiful staircase, Craven was conscious of a flavour in this mansion which was new to him, but which savoured of spacious times, when the servant question was not acute, when decent people did not move from house to house like gipsies changing camp, when flats were unknown—spacious times and more elegant times than ours.

The butler and Craven gained a large landing on which was displayed a remarkable collection of oriental china. The butler opened a tall mahogany door and bent his head again to receive the murmur of Craven's name. It was announced, and Craven found himself in a great drawing-room, at the far end of which, by a fire, were sitting three people. They were Lady Sellingworth, the faithful Sir Seymour Portman, and a beautiful girl, slim, fair, with an athletic figure, and vividly intelligent, though rather sarcastic, violet eyes. This was Miss Beryl Van Tuyn. (Craven did not know who she was, though he recognized at once the erect figure, faithful, penetrating eyes and curly white hair—cauliflower hair—of the general, whom he had often seen about town and "in attendance" on royalty at functions.)

Lady Sellingworth got up to receive him. As she did so he was almost startled by her height.

She was astonishingly tall, probably well over six feet, very slim, thin even, with a small head covered with rather wavy white hair and set on a long neck, sloping shoulders, long, aristocratic hands on which she wore loose white gloves, narrow, delicate feet, very fine wrists and ankles. Her head reminded Craven of the head of a deer. As for her face, once marvellously beautiful according to the report of competent judges who had seen all the beauties of their day, it was now quite frankly a ruin, lined, fallen in here and there, haggard, drawn. Nevertheless, looking upon it, one could guess that once upon a time it must have been a face with a mobile, almost imperial, outline, perhaps almost insolently striking, the arrogant countenance of a conqueror. When gazing at it one gazed at the ruin, not of a cottage or of a gimcrack villa, but at the ruins of a palace. Lady Sellingworth's eyes were very dark and still magnificent, like two brilliant lamps in her head. A keen intelligence gazed out of them. There was often something half sad, half mocking in their expression. But Craven thought that they mocked at herself rather than at others. She was very plainly dressed in black, and her dress was very high at the neck. She wore no ornaments except a wedding ring, and two sapphires in her ears, which were tiny and beautiful.

Her greeting to Craven was very kind. He noticed at once that her manner was as natural almost as a frank, manly schoolboy's, carelessly, strikingly natural. There could never, he thought, have been a grain of affectation in her. The idea even came into his head that she was as natural as a tramp. Nevertheless the stamp of the great lady was imprinted all over her. She had a voice that was low, very sensitive and husky.

Instantly she fascinated Craven. Instantly he did not care whether she was old or young, in perfect preservation or a ruin. For she seemed to him penetratingly human, simply and absolutely herself as God had made her. And what a rare joy that was, to meet in London a woman of the great world totally devoid of the smallest shred of make-believe! Craven felt that if she appeared before her Maker she would be exactly as she was when she said how do you do to him.

She introduced him to Miss Van Tuyn and the general, made him sit next to her, and gave him tea.

Miss Van Tuyn began talking, evidently continuing a conversation which had been checked for a moment by the arrival of Craven. She was obviously intelligent and had enormous vitality. She was also obviously preoccupied with her own beauty and with the effect it was having upon her hearers. She not only listened to herself while she spoke; she seemed also to be trying to visualize herself while she spoke. In her imagination she was certainly watching herself, and noting with interest and pleasure her young and ardent beauty, which seemed to Craven more remarkable when she was speaking than when she was silent. She must, Craven thought, often have stood before a mirror and carefully "memorized" herself in all her variety and detail. As he sat there listening he could not help comparing her exquisite bloom of youth with the ravages of time so apparent in Lady Sellingworth, and being struck by the inexorable cruelty of life. Yet there was something which persisted and over which time had no empire—charm. On that afternoon the charm of Lady Sellingworth's quiet attention to her girl visitor seemed to Craven even greater than the charm of that girl visitor's vivid vitality.

Sir Seymour, who had the self-contained and rather detached manner of the old courtier, mingled with the straight-forward self-possession of the old soldier thoroughly accustomed to dealing with men in difficult moments, threw in a word or two occasionally. Although a grave, even a rather sad-looking man, he was evidently entertained by Miss Van Tuyn's volubility and almost passionate, yet not vulgar, egoism. Probably he thought such a lovely girl had a right to admire herself. She talked of herself in modern Paris with the greatest enthusiasm, cleverly grouping Paris, its gardens, its monuments, its pictures, its brilliant men and women as a decor around the one central figure—Miss Beryl Van Tuyn.

"Why do you never come to Paris, dearest?" she presently said to Lady Sellingworth. "You used to know it so very well, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes; I had an apartment in Paris for years. But that was almost before you were born," said the husky, sympathetic voice of her hostess.

Craven glanced at her. She was smiling.

"Surely you loved Paris, didn't you?" said Miss Van Tuyn.

"Very much, and understood it very well."

"Oh—that! She understands everything, doesn't she, Sir Seymour?"

"Perhaps we ought to except mathematics and military tactics," he replied, with a glance at Lady Sellingworth half humorous, half affectionate. "But certainly everything connected with the art of living is her possession."

"And—the art of dying?" Lady Sellingworth said, with a lightly mocking sound in her voice.

Miss Van Tuyn opened her violet eyes very wide.

"But is there an art of dying? Living—yes; for that is being and is continuous. But dying is ceasing."

"And there is an art of ceasing, Beryl. Some day you may know that."

"Well, but even very old people are always planning for the future on earth. No one expects to cease. Isn't it so, Mr. Craven?"

She turned to him, and he agreed with her and instanced a certain old duchess who, at the age of eighty, was preparing for a tour round the world when influenza stepped in and carried her off, to the great vexation of Thomas Cook and Son.

"We must remember that that duchess was an American," observed Sir Seymour.

"You mean that we Americans are more determined not to cease than you English?" she asked. "That we are very persistent?"

"Don't you think so?"

"Perhaps we are."

She turned and laid a hand gently, almost caressingly, on Lady Sellingworth's.

"I shall persist until I get you over to Paris," she said. "I do want you to see my apartment, and my bronzes—particularly my bronzes. When were you last in Paris?"

"Passing through or staying—do you mean?"

"Staying."

Lady Sellingworth was silent for an instant, and Craven saw the half sad, half mocking expression in her eyes.

"I haven't stayed in Paris for ten years," she said.

She glanced at Sir Seymour, who slightly bent his curly head as if in assent.

"It's almost incredible, isn't it, Mr. Craven?" said Miss Van Tuyn. "So unlike the man who expressed a wish to be buried in Paris."

Craven remembered at that moment Braybrooke's remark in the club that Lady Sellingworth's jewelry were stolen in Paris at the Gare du Nord ten years ago. Did Miss Van Tuyn know about that? He wondered as he murmured something non-committal.

Miss Van Tuyn now tried to extract a word of honour promise from Lady Sellingworth to visit her in Paris, where, it seemed, she lived very independently with a dame de compagnie, who was always in one room with a cold reading the novels of Paul Bourget. ("Bourget keeps on writing for her!" the gay girl said, not without malice.)

But Lady Sellingworth evaded her gently.

"I'm too lazy for Paris now," she said. "I no longer care for moving about. This old town house of mine has become to me like my shell. I'm lazy, Beryl; I'm lazy. You don't know what that is; nor do you, Mr. Craven. Even you, Seymour, you don't know. For you are a man of action, and at Court there is always movement. But I, my friends—" She gave Craven a deliciously kind yet impersonal smile. "I am a contemplative. There is nothing oriental about me, but I am just a quiet British contemplative, untouched by the unrest of your age."

"But it's your age, too!" cried Miss Van Tuyn.

"No, dear. I was an Edwardian."

"I wish I had known you then!" said Miss Van Tuyn impulsively.

"You would not have known me then," returned Lady Sellingworth, with the slightest possible stress on the penultimate word.

Then she changed the conversation. Craven felt that she was not fond of talking about herself.

CHAPTER III

That day Craven walked away from Lady Sellingworth's house with Miss Van Tuyn, leaving Sir Seymour Portman behind him.

Miss Van Tuyn was staying with a friend at the Hyde Park Hotel, and, as she said she wanted some air, Craven offered to accompany her there on foot.

"Do!" she said in her frank and very conscious way. "I'm afraid of London on a Sunday."

"Afraid!"

"As I'm afraid of a heavy, dull person with a morose expression. Please don't be angry."

Craven smiled.

"I know! Paris is much lighter in hand than London on a Sunday."

"Isn't it? But there are people in London! Isn't she a precious person?"

"Lady Sellingworth?"

"Yes. You have marvellous old women in London who do all that we young people do, and who look astonishing. They might almost be somewhere in the thirties when one knows they are really in the sixties. They play games, ride, can still dance, have perfect digestions, sit up till two in the morning and are out shopping in Bond Street as fresh as paint by eleven, having already written dozens of acceptances to invitations, arranged dinners, theatre parties, heaven knows what! Made of cast iron, they seem. They even manage somehow to be fairly attractive to young men. They are living marvels, and I take off my toque to them. But Lady Sellingworth, quite old, ravaged, devastated by time one might say, who goes nowhere and who doesn't even play bridge—she beats them all. I love her. I love her wrinkled distinction, her husky voice, her careless walk. She walks anyhow, like a woman alone on a country road. She looks even older than she is. But what does it matter? If I were a man—"

"Would you fall in love with her?" Craven interposed.

"Oh, no!"

She shot a blue glance at him.

"But I should love her—if only she would let me. But she wouldn't. I feel that."

"I never saw her till to-day. She charmed me."

"Of course. But she didn't try to."

"Probably not."

"That's it! She doesn't try, and that's partly why she succeeds, being as God has made her. Do you know that some people hate her?"

"Impossible!"

"They do."

"Who do?"

"The young-old women of her time, the young-old Edwardian women. She dates them. She shows them up by looking as she does. She is their contemporary, and she has the impertinence to be old. And they can't forgive her for it."

"I understand," said Craven. "She has betrayed the 'old guard.' She has disobeyed the command inscribed on their banner. She has given up."

"Yes. They will never pardon her, never!"

"I wonder what made her do it?" said Craven.

And he proceeded to touch on Miss Van Tuyn's desire to get Lady Sellingworth to Paris. He soon found out that she did not know about the jewels episode. She showed curiosity, and he told her what he knew. She seemed deeply interested.

"I was sure there was a mystery in her life," she said. "I have always felt it. Ten years ago! And since then she has never stayed in Paris!"

"And since then—from that moment—she has betrayed the 'old guard.'"

"How? I don't understand."

Craven explained. Miss Van Tuyn listened with an intensity of interest which flattered him. He began to think her quite lovely, and she saw the pretty thought in his mind.

When he had finished she said:

"No attempt to recover the lost jewels, the desertion of Paris, the sudden change into old age! What do you make of it?"

"I can make nothing. Unless the chagrin she felt made her throw up everything in a fit of anger. And then, of course, once the thing was done she couldn't go back."

"You mean—go back to the Edwardian youthfulness she had abandoned?"

"Yes. One may refuse to grow old, but once one has become definitely, ruthlessly old, it's practically impossible to jump back to a pretence of the thirties."

"Of course. It would frighten people. But—it wasn't that."

"No?"

"No. For if she had felt the loss of her jewels so much as you suggest, she would have made every effort to recover them."

"I suppose she would."

"The heart of the mystery lies in her not wishing to try to get the jewels back. That, to me, is inexplicable. Because we women love jewels. And no woman carries about jewels worth fifty thousand pounds without caring very much for them."

"Just what I have thought," said Craven.

After a short silence he added:

"Could Lady Sellingworth possibly have known who had stolen the jewels, do you think?"

"What! And refrained from denouncing the thief!"

"She might have had a reason."

Miss Van Tuyn's keen though still girlish eyes looked sharply into Craven's for an instant.

"I believe you men, you modern men are very apt to think terrible things about women," she said.

Craven warmly defended himself against this abrupt accusation.

"Well, but what did you mean?" persisted Miss Van Tuyn. "Now, go against your sex and be truthful for once to a woman."

"I really don't know exactly what I meant," said Craven. "But I suppose it's possible to conceive of circumstances in which a woman might know the identity of a thief and yet not wish to prosecute."

"Very well. I'll let you alone," she rejoined. "But this mystery makes Lady Sellingworth more fascinating to me than ever. I'm not particularly curious about other people. I'm too busy about myself for that. But I would give a great deal to know a little more of her truth. Do you remember her remark when I said 'I wish I had known you then'?"

"Yes. She said, 'You would not have known me then.'"

"There have been two Adela Sellingworths. And I only know one. I do want to know the other. But I am almost sure I never shall. And yet she's fond of me. I know that. She likes my being devoted to her. I feel she's a book of wisdom, and I have only read a few pages."

She walked on quickly with her light, athletic step. Just as they were passing Hyde Park Corner she said:

"I think I shall go to one of the 'old guard.'"

"Why?" asked Craven.

"You ask questions to which you know the answers," she retorted.

And then they talked of other things.

When they reached the hotel and Craven was about to say good-bye, Miss Van Tuyn said to him:

"Are you coming to see me one day?"

Her expression suggested that she was asking a question to which she knew the answer, in this following the example just given to her by Craven.

"I want to," he said.

"Then do give me your card."

He gave it to her.

"We both want to know her secret," she said, as she put it into her card-case. "Our curiosity about that dear, delightful woman is a link between us."

Craven looked into her animated eyes, which were strongly searching him for admiration. He took her hand and held it for a moment.

"I don't think I want to know Lady Sellingworth's secret if she doesn't wish me to know it," he said.

"Now—is that true?"

"Yes," he said, with a genuine earnestness which seemed to amuse her. "Really, really it is true."

She sent him a slightly mocking glance.

"Well, I am less delicate. I want to know it, whether she wishes me to or not. And yet I am more devoted to her than you are. I have known her for quite a long time."

"One can learn devotion very quickly," he said, pressing her hand before he let it go.

"In an afternoon?"

"Yes, in an afternoon."

"Happy Lady Sellingworth!" she said.

Then she turned to go into the hotel. Just before she passed through the swing door she looked round at Craven. The movement of her young head was delicious.

"After all, in spite of the charm that won't die," he thought, "there's nothing like youth for calling you."

He thought Lady Sellingworth really more charming than Miss Van Tuyn, but he knew that the feeling of her hand in his would not have thrilled something in him, a very intimate part of himself, as he had just been thrilled.

He felt almost angry with himself as he walked away, and he muttered under his breath:

"Damn the animal in me!"

CHAPTER IV

Not many days later Craven received a note from Miss Van Tuyn asking him to come to see her at a certain hour on a certain day. He went and found her alone in a private sitting-room overlooking the Park. For the first time he saw her without a hat. With her beautiful corn-coloured hair uncovered she looked, he thought, more lovely than when he had seen her at Lady Sellingworth's. She noted that thought at once, caught it on the wing through his mind, as it were, and caged it comfortably in hers.

"I have seen the 'old guard,'" she said, after she had let him hold and press her hand for two or three seconds.

"What, the whole regiment?" said Craven.

She sat down on a sofa by a basket of roses. He sat down near her.

"No; only two or three of the leaders."

"Do I know them?"

"Probably. Mrs. Ackroyde?"

"I know her."

"Lady Archie Brook?"

"Her, too."

"I've also seen Lady Wrackley."

"I have met Lady Wrackley, but I can hardly say I know her. Still, she shows her teeth at me when I come into a room where she is."

"They are wonderful teeth, aren't they?"

"Astonishing!"

"And they are her own—not by purchase."

"Are you sure she doesn't owe for them?"

"Positive; except, of course, to her Creator. Isn't it wonderful to think that those three women are contemporaries of Lady Sellingworth?"

"Indeed it is! But surely you didn't let them know that you knew they were? Or shall I say know they are?"

She smiled, showing perfect teeth, and shook her corn-coloured head.

"You see, I'm so young and live in Paris! And then I'm American. They have no idea how much I know. I just let them suppose that I only knew they were old enough to remember Lady Sellingworth when she was still a reigning beauty. I implied that they were buds then."

"And they accepted the implication?"

"Oh, they are women of the world! They just swallowed it very quietly, as a well-bred person swallows a small easy-going bonbon."

Craven could not help laughing. As he did so he saw in Miss Van Tuyn's eyes the thought:

"You think me witty, and you're not far out."

"And did you glean any knowledge of Lady Sellingworth?" he asked.

"Oh, yes; quite a good deal. Mrs. Ackroyde showed me a photograph of her as she was about eleven years ago."

"A year before the plunge!"

"Yes. She looked very handsome in the photograph. Of course, it was tremendously touched up. Still, it gave me a real idea of what she must once have been. But, oh! how she has changed!"

"Naturally!"

"I mean in expression. In the photograph she looks vain, imperious. Do you know how a woman looks who is always on the watch for new lovers?"

"Well—yes, I think perhaps I do."

"Lady Sellingworth in the photograph has that on the pounce expression."

"That's rather awful, isn't it?"

"Yes; because, of course, one can see she isn't really at all young. It's only a fausse jeunesse after all, but still very effective. The gap between the woman of the photograph and the woman of 18A Berkeley Square is as the gulf between Dives and Lazarus. I shouldn't have loved her then. But perhaps—perhaps a man might have thought he did. I mean in the real way of a man—perhaps."

Craven did not inquire what Miss Van Tuyn meant exactly by that. Instead, he asked:

"And did these ladies of the 'old guard' speak kindly of the white-haired traitress?"

"They were careful. But I gathered that Lady Sellingworth had been for years and years one of those who go on their way chanting, 'Let us eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die.' I gathered, too, that her efforts were chiefly concentrated on translating into appropriate action the third 'let us.' But that no doubt was for the sake of her figure and face. Lady Archie said that the motto of Lady Sellingworth's life at that period was 'after me the deluge,' and that she had so dinned it into the ears of her friends that when she let her hair grow white they all instinctively put up umbrellas."

"And yet the deluge never came."

"It never does. I could almost wish it would."

"Now?"

"No; after me."

He looked deep into her eyes, and as he did so she seemed deliberately to make them more profound so that he might not touch bottom.

"It's difficult to think of an after you," he said.

"But there will be, I suppose, some day when the Prince of Wales wears a grey beard and goes abroad in the winter to escape bronchial troubles. Oh, dear! What a brute Time is!"

She tried to look pathetic, and succeeded better than Craven had expected.

"I shall put up my en tout cas then," said Craven very seriously.

Still looking pathetic, she allowed her eyes to stray to a neighbouring mirror, waited for a moment, then smiled.

"Time's a brute, but there's still plenty of him for me," she said. "And for you, too."

"He isn't half so unpleasant to men as to women," said Craven. "He makes a very unfair distinction between the sexes."

"Naturally—because he's a man."

"What did Lady Wrackley say?" asked Craven, returning to their subject.

"Why do you ask specially what she said?"

"Because she has a reputation, a bad one, for speaking her mind."

"She certainly was the least guarded of the 'old guard.' But she said she loved Lady Sellingworth now, because she was so changed."

"Physically, I suppose."

"She didn't say that. She said morally."

"That wasn't stupid of her."

"Just what I thought. She said a moral revolution had taken place in Lady Sellingworth after the jewels were stolen."

"That sounds almost too tumultuous to be comfortable."

"Like 'A Tale of Two Cities' happening in one's interior."

"And what did she attribute such a phenomenon to?"

"Well, she took almost a clerical view of the matter."

"How very unexpected!"

"She said she believed that Adela—she called her Adela—that Adela took the loss of her jewels as a punishment for her sins."

"Do you mean to say she used the word sins?"

"No; she said 'many lapses.' But that's what she meant."

"Lapses from what?"

"She didn't exactly say. But I'm afraid she meant from a strict moral code."

"Oh, Lord!" said Craven, thinking of Lady Wrackley's smile.

"Why do you say that?"

"Please—never mind! So Lady Wrackley thinks that Lady Sellingworth considered the loss of her jewels such a fitting punishment for her many lapses from a strict moral code that she never tried to get them back?"

"Apparently. She said that Addie—she called her Addie then—that Addie bowed her head."

"Not beneath the rod! Don't tell me she used the word rod!"

"But she did!"

"Priceless!"

"Wasn't it? But women are like that when they belong to the 'old guard.' Do you think she can be right?"

"If it is so, Lady Sellingworth must be a very unusual sort of woman."

"She is—now. For she really did give up all in a moment. And she has never repented of what she did, as far as anyone knows. I think—"

She paused, looking thoughtful at the mirror.

"Yes?" said Craven gently.

"I think it's rather fine to plunge into old age like that. You go on being young and beautiful till everyone marvels, and then one day—or night, perhaps—you look in the glass and you see the wrinkles as they are—"

"Does any woman ever do that?"

"She must have! And you say to yourself, 'C'est fini!' and you throw up the sponge. No more struggles for you! From one day to another you become an old woman. I think I shall do as Lady Sellingworth has done."

"When?"

"When I'm—perhaps at fifty, yes, at fifty. No man really cares for a woman, as a woman wants him to care, after fifty."

"I wonder," said Craven.

She sent him a sharp, questioning glance.

"Did you ever wonder before you went to Berkeley Square?"

"Perhaps not."

A slight shadow seemed to pass over Miss Van Tuyn's face.

"I believe there was a famous French actress who was loved after she was seventy," said Craven.

"Then the man must have been a freak."

"Lots of us are freaks."

"I don't think you are," she said provocatively.

"Why not?"

"I have my little private reasons," she murmured.

At that moment Craven was conscious of a silly desire to take her in his arms, bundle of vanities though he knew her to be. He hated himself for being so ordinary. But there it was!

He looked at her eyebrows. They were dark and beautifully shaped and made an almost unnerving contrast with her corn-coloured hair.

"I know what you are thinking," she said.

"Impossible!"

"You are thinking that I darken them. But I don't."

And then Craven gave up and became frankly foolish.

CHAPTER V

Though ordinary enough in her youthful egoism, and entirely du jour in her flagrantly shown vanity, Miss Van Tuyn, as Craven was to find out, was really something of an original. Her independence was abnormal and was mental as well as physical. She lived a life of her own, and her brain was not purely imitative. She not only acted often originally, but thought for herself. She was not merely a very pretty girl. She was somebody. And somehow she had trained people to accept her daring way of life. In Paris she did exactly what she chose, and quite openly. There was no secrecy in her methods. In London she pursued the same housetop course. She seldom troubled about a chaperon, and would calmly give a lunch at the Carlton without one if she wanted to. Indeed, she had been seen there more than once, making one of a party of six, five of whom were men. She did not care for women as a sex, and said so in the plainest language, denouncing their mentality as still afflicted by a narrowness that smacked of the harem. But for certain women she had a cult, and among these women Lady Sellingworth held a prominent, perhaps the most prominent, place.

Three days after his visit to the Hyde Park Hotel Craven, having no dinner invitation and feeling disinclined for the well-known formality of the club where he often dined, resolved to yield to a faint inclination towards a very mild Bohemianism which sometimes beset him, and made his way in a day suit to Soho seeking a restaurant. He walked first down Greek Street, then turned into Frith Street. There he peeped into two or three restaurants without making up his mind to sample their cooking, and presently was attracted by a sound of guitars giving forth with almost Neapolitan fervour the well-known tune, "O Sole Mio!" The music issued from an unpretentious building over the door of which was inscribed, "Ristorante Bella Napoli."

It was a cold, dark evening, and Craven was feeling for the moment rather depressed and lonely. The music drew his thoughts to dear Italy, to sunshine, a great blue bay, brown, half-naked fishermen pulling in nets from the deep with careless and Pagan gestures, to the thoughtless, delicious life only possible in the golden heart of the South. He did not know the restaurant, but he hesitated no longer. Never mind what the cooking was like; he would eat to the sound of those guitars which he knew were being thrummed by Italian fingers. He pushed the swing door and at once found himself in a room which seemed redolent of the country which everyone loves.

It was a narrow room, with a sanded floor and the usual small tables. The walls were painted with volcanic pictures in which Vesuvius played a principal part. Vesuvius erupted on one wall, slept in the moonlight on another, at the end of the room was decked out in all the glories of an extremely Neapolitan sunset. Upon the ceiling was Capri, stretching out from an azure sea. For the moment the guitars had ceased, but their players, swarthy, velvet eyed, and unmistakable children of Italy, sat at ease, their instruments still held in brown hands ready for further plucking of the sonorous strings. And the room was alive with the uproar of Italian voices talking their native language, with the large and unselfconscious gestures of Italian hands, with the movement of Italian heads, with the flash and sparkle of animated Italian eyes. Chianti was being drunk; macaroni, minestra, gnocchi, ravioli, alaione were being eaten; here and there Toscanas were being smoked. Italy was in the warm air, and in an instant from Craven's consciousness London was blotted out.

For a moment he stood just inside the door feeling almost confused. Opposite to him was the padrona, a large and lustrous woman with sleepy, ox-like eyes, sitting behind a sort of counter. Italian girls, with coal-black hair, slipped deftly to and fro among the tables serving the customers. The musicians stared at Craven with the fixed, unwinking definiteness which the traveller from England begins to meet with soon after he passes Lugano. Where was a table for an Englishman?

"Ecco, signorino!"

An Italian girl smiled and beckoned with a sort of intimate liveliness and understanding that quite warmed Craven's heart. There was a table free, just one, under Vesuvius erupting. Craven took it, quickly ordered all the Italian dishes he could think of and a bottle of Chianti Rosso, and then looked about the long, little room. He looked—to see Italian faces, and he saw many; but suddenly, instead of merely looking, he stared. His eyelids quivered; even his lips parted. Was it possible? Yes, it was! At a table tucked into a corner by the window were sitting Beryl Van Tuyn and actually—Santa Lucia!—Lady Sellingworth! And they were both eating—what was it? Craven stretched his neck—they were both eating Risotto alla Milanese!

At this moment the guitars struck up that most Neapolitan of songs, the "Canzona di Mergellina," the smiling Italian girl popped a heaped-up plate of macaroni blushing gently with tomato sauce before Craven, and placed a straw bottle of ruby hued Chianti by the bit of bread at his left hand, and Miss Van Tuyn turned her corn-coloured head to have a good look at the room and, incidentally, to allow the room to have a good look at her.

The violet eyes, full of conscious assurance, travelled from table to table and arrived at Craven and his macaroni. She looked surprised, then sent him a brilliant smile, turned quickly and spoke to Lady Sellingworth. The latter then also looked towards Craven, smiled kindly, and bowed with the careless, haphazard grace which seemed peculiar to her.

Craven hesitated for an instant, then got up and threading his way among Italians, went to greet the two ladies. It struck him that Lady Sellingworth looked marvellously at home with her feet on the sanded floor. Could she ever be not at home anywhere? He spoke a few words, then returned to his table with Miss Van Tuyn's parting sentence in his ears; "When you have dined come and smoke your Toscana with us."

As he ate his excellently cooked meal he felt pleasantly warmed and even the least bit excited. This was a wholly unexpected encounter. To meet the old age and the radiant youth which at the moment interested him more than any other old age, any other radiant youth, in London, in these surroundings, to watch them with the music of guitars in his ears and the taste of ravioli on his lips, silently to drink to them in authentic Chianti—all this gave a savour to his evening which he had certainly not anticipated. When now and then his eyes sought the table tucked into the corner by the window, he saw his two acquaintances plunged deep in conversation. Presently Miss Van Tuyn lit a cigarette, which she smoked in the short interval between two courses. She moved, and sat in such a way that her profile was presented to the room as clearly and definitely as a profile stamped on a finely cut coin. Certainly she was marvellously good-looking. She had not only the beauty of colouring; she had also the more distinguished and lasting beauty of line.

An Italian voice near to Craven remarked loudly, with a sort of coarse sentimentality:

"Che bella ragassa!"

Another Italian voice replied:

"Ha ragione di venire qui con quella povera vecchia! Com'e brutta la vecchiezza!"

For a moment Craven felt hot with a sort of intimate anger; but the guitars began "Santa Lucia," and took him away again to Naples. And what is the use of being angry with the Italian point of view? As well be angry with the Mediterranean for being a tideless sea. But he glanced at the profile and remembered the words, and could not help wondering whether Miss Van Tuyn's cult for Lady Sellingworth had its foundations in self-love rather than in attraction to her whom Braybrooke had called "the most charming old woman in London."

Presently Miss Van Tuyn, turning three-quarters face, sent him a "coffee-look," and he saw that a coffee apparatus of the hour-glass type was being placed on the table by the window. He nodded, but held up a clean spoon to indicate that his zabaione had yet to be swallowed. She smiled, understanding, and spoke again to Lady Sellingworth. A few minutes later Craven left his table and joined them, taking his Toscana with him.

They were charmingly prepared for his advent. Three cups were on the table, and coffee for three was mounting in the hour glass. The two friends were smoking cigarettes.

As he prepared to sit down on the chair placed ready for him with his back to the window, Miss Van Tuyn said:

"One minute! Please give the musicians this!"

She put five shillings into his hand.

"And ask them to play the Sicilian Pastorale, and 'A Mezzanotte,' and the Barcarola di Sorrento, and not to play 'Funiculi, Funicula.' Do you mind?"

"Of course not! But do let me—"

"No, no! This is my little treat to Lady Sellingworth. She has never been here before."

Craven went round to the musicians and carried out his directions. As he did so he saw adoring looks of comprehension come into their dark faces, and, turning, he caught a wonderful smile that was meant for them flickering on the soft lips of Miss Van Tuyn. That smile was as provocative, as definitely full of the siren quality, as if it had dawned for the only lover, instead of for three humble Italians, "hairdressers in the daytime," as Miss Van Tuyn explained to Craven while she poured out his coffee.

"I often come here," she added. "You're surprised, I can see."

"I must say I am," said Craven. "I thought your beat lay rather in the direction of the Carlton, the Ritz, and Claridge's."

"You see how little he knows me!" she said, turning to Lady Sellingworth.

"Beryl does not always tread beaten paths," said Lady Sellingworth to Craven.

"I hate beaten paths. One meets all the dull people on them, the people who hope they are walking where everyone walks. Beaten paths are like the front at Brighton on a Sunday morning. What do you say to our coffee, dearest?"

"It is the best I have drunk for a long while outside my own house," Lady Sellingworth answered.

Then she turned to Craven.

"Are you really going to smoke a Toscana?"

"If you really don't mind? It isn't a habit with me, but I assure you I know how to do it quite adequately."

"He's an artist," said Miss Van Tuyn. "He knows it's the only cigar that really goes with Vesuvius. Do light up!"

"I'm thankful I came here to-night," he said. "I felt very dull and terrifically English, so I turned to Soho as an antidote. The guitars lured me in here. I was at the Embassy in Rome for a year. In the summer we lived at the Villa Rosebery, near Naples. Ever since that time I've had an almost childish love of guitars."

Miss Van Tuyn held up a hand and formed "Sh!" with her rosy lips.

"It's the Barcarola di Sorrento!" she whispered.

A silence fell in the narrow room. The Italian voices were hushed. The padrona dreamed behind her counter with her large arms laid upon it, like an Italian woman spread out on her balcony for an afternoon's watching of the street below her window. And Craven let himself go to the music, as so many English people only let themselves go when something Italian is calling them. On his left Miss Van Tuyn, with one arm leaning on the table, listened intently, but not so intently that she forgot to watch Craven and to keep track of his mind. On his right Lady Sellingworth sat very still. She had put away her only half-smoked cigarette. Her eyes looked down on the table cloth. Her very tall figure was held upright, but without any stiffness. One of her hands was hidden. The other, in a long white glove, rested on the table, and presently the fingers of it began gently to close and unclose, making, as they did this, a faint shuffling noise against the cloth.

Miss Van Tuyn glanced at those fingers and then again at Craven, but for the moment he did not notice her. He was standing by the little harbour at the Villa Rosebery, looking across the bay to Capri on a warm summer evening. And the sea people were in his thoughts. How often had he envied them their lives, as men envy those whose lives are utterly different from theirs!

But presently Miss Van Tuyn's persistent and vigorous mind must have got some hold on his, for he began to remember her beauty and to feel the lure of it in the music. And then, almost simultaneously, he was conscious of Lady Sellingworth, of her old age and of her departed beauty. And he felt her loss in the music.

Could such a woman enjoy listening to such music? Must it not rather bring a subtle pain into her heart, the pain that Italy brings to her devotees, when the years have stolen from them the last possibilities of personal romance? For a moment Craven imaginatively projected himself into old age, saw himself with white hair, a lined face, heavily-veined hands, faded eyes.

But her eyes were not faded. They still shone like lamps. Was she, perhaps, the victim of a youthful soul hidden in an old body, like trembling Love caged in a decaying tabernacle from which it could not escape?

He looked up. At the same moment Lady Sellingworth looked up. Their eyes met. She smiled faintly, and her eyes mocked something or someone; fate, perhaps, him, or herself. He did not know what or whom they mocked.

The music stopped, and, after some applause, conversation broke out again.

"Have you given up Italy as you have given up Paris?" Miss Van Tuyn asked of Lady Sellingworth.

"Oh, yes, long ago. I only go to Aix now for a cure, and sometimes in the early spring to Cap Martin."

"The hotel?"

"Yes; the hotel. I like the pine woods."

"So do I. But, to my mind, there's no longer a vestige of real romance on the French Riviera. Too many grand dukes have passed over it."

Lady Sellingworth laughed.

"But I don't seek romance when I leave London."

"No?"

She looked oddly doubtful for a moment. Then she said:

"Mr. Craven, will you tell us the truth?"

"It depends. What about?"

"Oh, a very simple matter."

"I'll do my best, but all men are liars."

"We only ask you to do your best."

"We!" he said, with a glance at Lady Sellingworth.

"Yes—yes," she said. "I go solid with my sex."

"Then—what is it?"

"Do you ever go travelling—ever, without a secret hope of romance meeting you on your travels, somewhere, somehow, wonderfully, suddenly? Do you?"

He thought for a moment. Then he said:

"Honestly, I don't think I ever do."

"There!" said Miss Van Tuyn triumphantly. "Nor do I."

She looked half defiantly, half inquisitively at Lady Sellingworth.

"My dear Beryl!" said the latter, "for all these lacks in your temperament you must wait."

"Wait? For how long?"

"Till you are fifty, perhaps."

"I know I shall want romance at fifty."

"Let us say sixty, then."

"Or," interrupted Craven, "until you are comfortably married."

"Comfortably married!" she cried. "Quelle horreur!"

"I had no idea Americans were so romantic," said Lady Sellingworth, with just a touch of featherweight malice.

"Americans! I believe the longing for romance covers both sexes and all the human race."

She let her eyes go into Craven's.

"Only up till a certain age," said Lady Sellingworth. "When we love to sit by the fire, we can do very well without it. But we must be careful to lay up treasure for our old age, mental treasure. We must cultivate tastes and habits which have nothing to do with wildness. A man in Sorrento taught me about that."

"A man in Sorrento!" said Miss Van Tuyn, suddenly and sharply on the alert.

"Yes. He was a famous writer, and had, I dare say, been a famous lover in his time. One day, as we drove beyond the town towards the hills, he described to me the compensations old age holds for sensible people. It's a question of cultivating and preparing the mind, of filling the storehouse against the day of famine. He had done it, and assured me that he didn't regret his lost youth or sigh after its unrecoverable pleasures. He had accustomed his mind to its task."

"What task, dearest?"

"Acting in connexion with the soul—his word that—as a thoroughly efficient substitute for his body as a pleasure giver."

At this moment the adoring eyes of the three musicians who were "hairdressers in the daytime" focussed passionately upon Miss Van Tuyn, distracted her attention. She felt masculinity intent upon her and responded automatically.

"The dear boys! They are asking if they shall play the Pastorale for me. Look at their eyes!" she said.

Craven did not bother to do that, but looked instead at hers, wondering a little at her widespread energy in net casting. Was it possible that once Lady Sellingworth had been like that, ceaselessly on the lookout for worship, requiring it as a right, even from men who were hairdressers in the daytime? As the musicians began to play he met her eyes again and felt sure that it could not have been so. Whatever she had done, whatever she had been, she could never have frequented the back stairs. That thought seemed a rather cruel thrust at Miss Van Tuyn. But there is a difference in vanities. Wonderful variety of nature!

When the players had finished the Pastorale and "A Mezzanotte," and had been rewarded by a long look of thanks from Miss Van Tuyn which evidently drove them over the borders of admiration into the regions of unfulfilled desire, Lady Sellingworth said she must go. And then an unexpected thing happened. It appeared that Miss Van Tuyn had asked a certain famous critic, who though English by birth was more Parisian than most French people, to call for her at the restaurant and take her on to join a party at the Cafe Royal. She, therefore, could not go yet, and she begged Lady Sellingworth to stay on and to finish up the evening in the company of Georgians at little marble tables. But Lady Sellingworth laughingly jibbed at the Cafe Royal.

"I should fall out of my assiette there!" she said.

"But no one is ever surprised at the Cafe Royal, dearest. It is the one place in London where—Ah! here is Jennings come to fetch us!"

A very small man, with a pointed black beard and wandering green eyes, wearing a Spanish sombrero and a black cloak, and carrying an ebony stick nearly as tall as himself, at this moment slipped furtively into the room, and, without changing his delicately plaintive expression, came up to Miss Van Tuyn and ceremoniously shook hands with her.

Lady Sellingworth looked for a moment at Craven.

"May I escort you home?" he said. "At any rate, let me get you a taxi."

"Lady Sellingworth, may I introduce Ambrose Jennings," said Miss Van Tuyn in a rather firm voice at this moment.

Lady Sellingworth bent kindly to the little man far down below her. After a word or two she said:

"Now I must go."

"Must you really? Then Mr. Craven will get you a taxi."

"If it's fine, I will walk. It seems more suitable to walk home after dining here."

"Walk! Then let us all walk together, and we'll persuade you into the Cafe Royal."

"Dick Garstin will be there," said Ambrose Jennings in a frail voice, "Enid Blunt, a Turkish refugee from Smyrna who writes quite decent verse, Thapoulos, Penitence Murray, who is just out of prison, and Smith the sculptor, with his mistress, a round-faced little Russian girl. She's the dearest little Bolshevik I know."

He looked plaintively yet critically at Lady Sellingworth, and pulled his little black beard with fingers covered with antique rings.

"Dear little bloodthirsty thing!" he added to Lady Sellingworth. "You would like her. I know it."

"I'm sure I should. There is something so alluring about Bolshevism when it's safely tucked up at the Cafe Royal. But I will only walk to the door."

"And then Mr. Craven will get you a taxi," said Miss Van Tuyn. "Shall we go?"

They fared forth into the London night—Craven last.

He realized that Miss Van Tuyn had made up her mind to keep both him and Jennings as her possessions of the evening, and to send Lady Sellingworth, if she would go home early, back to Berkeley Square without an escort. Her cult for her friend, though doubtless genuine, evidently weakened when there was any question of the allegiance of men. Craven made up his mind that he would not leave Lady Sellingworth until they were at the door of Number 18A, Berkeley Square.

In the street he found himself by the side of Miss Van Tuyn, behind Lady Sellingworth and Ambrose Jennings, who were really a living caricature as they proceeded through the night towards Shaftesbury Avenue. The smallness of Jennings, accentuated by his bat-like cloth cloak, his ample sombrero and fantastically long stick, made Lady Sellingworth look like a moving tower as she walked at his side, like a leaning tower when she bent graciously to catch the murmur of his persistent conversation. And as over the theatres in letters of fire were written the names of the stars in the London firmament—Marie Lohr, Moscovitch, Elsie Janis—so over, all over, Lady Sellingworth seemed to be written for Craven to read: "I am really not a Bohemian."

"Do you genuinely wish Lady Sellingworth to finish the evening at the Cafe Royal?" he asked of his companion.

"Yes. They would love her there. She would bring a new note."

"Probably. But would she love them?"

"I don't think you quite understand her," said Miss Van Tuyn.

"I'm quite sure I don't. Still—"

"In past years I am certain she has been to all the odd cafes of Paris."

"Perhaps. But one changes. And you yourself said there were—or was it had been?—two Adela Sellingworths, and that you only knew one."

"Yes. But perhaps at the Cafe Royal I should get to know the other."

"May she not be dead?"

"I have a theory that nothing of us really dies while we live. Our abode changes. We know that. But I believe the inhabitant is permanent. We are what we were, with, of course, innumerable additions brought to us by the years. For instance, I believe that Lady Sellingworth now is what she was, to all intents and purposes, with additions which naturally have made great apparent changes in her. An old moss-covered house, overgrown with creepers, looks quite different from the same house when it is new and bare. But go inside—the rooms are the same, and under the moss and the creepers are the same walls."

"It may be so. But what a difference the moss and the creepers make. Some may be climbing roses."

Craven felt the shrewd girlish eyes were looking at him closely.

"In her case some of them certainly are!" she said. "Oh, do look at them turning the corner! If Cirella were here he would have a subject for one of his most perfect caricatures. It is the leaning tower of Pisa with a bat."

The left wing of Ambrose Jennings's cloak flew out as he whirled into Regent Street by Lady Sellingworth's side.

CHAPTER VI

At the door of the Cafe Royal they stopped, and Miss Van Tuyn laid a hand on Lady Sellingworth's arm.

"Do come in, dearest. It will really amuse you," she said urgently. "And—I'll be truthful—I want to show you off to the Georgians as my friend. I want them to know how wonderful an Edwardian can be."

"Please—please!" pleaded Jennings from under his sombrero. "Dick would revel in you. You would whip him into brilliance. I know it. You admire his work, surely?"

"I admire it very much."

"And he is more wonderful still when he's drunk. And to-night—I feel it—he will be drunk. I pledge myself that Dick Garstin will be drunk."

"I'm sure it would be a very great privilege to see Mr. Garstin drunk. But I must go home. Good night, dear Beryl."

"But the little Bolshevik! You must meet the little Bolshevik!" cried Jennings.

Lady Sellingworth shook her deer-like head, smiling.

"Good night, Mr. Craven."

"But he is going to get you a taxi," said Miss Van Tuyn.

"Yes, and if you will allow me I am going to leave you at your door," said Craven, with decision.

A line appeared in Miss Van Tuyn's low forehead, but she only said:

"And then you will come back and join us."

"Thank you," said Craven.

He took off his hat. Miss Van Tuyn gave him a long and eloquent look, which was really not unlike a Leap Year proposal. Then she entered the cafe with Jennings. Craven thought at that moment that her back looked unusually rigid.

A taxi was passing. He held up his hand. It stopped. Lady Sellingworth and he got in, after he had given the address to the chauffeur.

"What a lovely girl Beryl Van Tuyn is!" said Lady Sellingworth, as they drove off.

"She is—very lovely."

"And she has a lot of courage, moral courage."

"Is it?" he could not help saying.

"Yes. She lives as she chooses to live. And yet she isn't married."

"Would marriage make it all easier for her?"

"Much, if she married the man who suited her."

"I wonder what sort of a man that would be."

"So does she, I think. But she's a strange girl. I should not be surprised if she were never to marry at all."

"Don't you think she would fall in love?"

"Yes. For I think every living woman is capable of that. But she has the sort of intellect which would not be tricked for very long by the heart. Any weakness of hers would soon be over, I fancy."

"I dare say you are right. In fact I believe you are generally right. She told me you were a book of wisdom. And I feel that it is true."

"Here is Berkeley Square."

"How wrong it is of these chauffeurs to drive so fast! It is almost as bad as in Paris. They defy the law. I should like to have this man up."

He got out. She followed him, looking immensely tall in the dimness.

"I am not going back to the Cafe Royal," he said.

"But it will be amusing. And I think they are certainly expecting you."

"I am not going there."

She rang. Instantly the door was opened by the handsome middle-aged butler.

"Then come in for a little while," she said casually. "Murgatroyd, you might bring us up some tea and lemon, or will you have whisky and soda, Mr. Craven?"

"I would much rather have tea and lemon, please," he said.

A great fire was burning in the hall. Again Craven felt that he was in a more elegant London than the London of modern days. As he went up the wide, calm staircase, and tasted the big silence of the house, he thought of the packed crowd in the Cafe Royal, of the uproar there, of the smoke wreaths, of the staring heterogeneous faces, of the shouting or sullenly folded lips, of the—perhaps—tipsy man of genius, of Jennings with his green eyes, his black beard, his tall ebony staff, of the "little bloodthirsty thing" with the round Russian face, of Miss Van Tuyn in the midst of it all, sitting by the side of Enid Blunt, smoking cigarettes, and searching the men's faces for the looks which were food for her craving. And he loved the contrast which was given to him.

"Do go in and sit by the fire, and I'll come in a moment," said the husky voice he was learning to love. "I'm just going to take off my hat."

Craven opened the great mahogany door and went in.

The big room was very dimly lighted by two standard electric lamps, one near the fireplace, the other in a distant corner where a grand piano stood behind a huge china bowl in which a pink azalea was blooming. There was a low armchair near the fire by a sofa. He sat down in it, and picked up a book which lay on a table close beside it. What did she read—this book of wisdom?

"Musiciens d'aujourd'hui," by Romain Rolland.

Craven thought he was disappointed. There was no revelation for him in that. He held the book on his knee, and wondered what he had expected to find, what type of book. What special line of reading was Lady Sellingworth's likely to be? He could imagine her dreaming over "Wisdom and Destiny," or perhaps over "The Book of Pity and of Death." On the other hand, it seemed quite natural to think of her smiling her mocking smile over a work of delicate, or even of bitter, irony, such as Anatole France's story of Pilate at the Baths of Baies, or study of the Penguins. He could not think that she cared for sentimental books, though she might perhaps have a taste for works dealing with genuine passion.

He heard the door open gently, and got up. Lady Sellingworth came in. She had not changed her dress, which was a simple day dress of black. She had only taken off her fur and hat, and now came towards him, still wearing white gloves and holding a large black fan in her hand.

"What's that you've got?" she asked. "Oh—my book!"

"Yes. I took it up because I wondered what you were reading. I think what people read by preference tells one something of what they are. I was interested to know what you read. Forgive my curiosity."

She sat down by the fire, opened the fan, and held it between her face and the flames.

"I read all sorts of things."

"Novels?"

"I very seldom read a novel now. Here is our tea. But I know you would rather have a whisky-and-soda."

"As a rule I should, but not to-night. I want to drink what you are drinking."

"And to smoke what I am smoking?" she said, with a faintly ironic smile.

"Yes—please."

She held out a box of cigarettes. The butler went out of the room.

"I love this house," said Craven abruptly. "I love its atmosphere."

"It isn't a modern atmosphere, is it?"

"Neither distinctively modern, nor in the least old-fashioned. I think the right adjective for it would be perhaps—"

He paused and sat silent for a moment.

"I hardly know. There's something remote, distinguished and yet very warm and intimate about it."

He looked at her and added, almost with hardihood.

"It's not a cold, or even a reserved house."

"Coldness and unnecessary reserve are tiresome—indeed, I might almost say abhorrent—to me."

She had given him his tea and lemon and taken hers.

"But not aloofness?"

"You have travelled?"

"Yes."

"Well, you know how, when travelling, it is easy to get into intimacies with people whom one doesn't want to be intimate with at home."

"Yes. I know all about that."

"At my age one has learnt to avoid not only such intimacies but many others less disagreeable, but which at moments might give one what I can only call mental gooseflesh. Is that aloofness?"

"I think it would probably be called so by some."

"By whom?"

"Oh, by mental gooseflesh-givers!"

She laughed, laughed quite out with a completeness which had something almost of youth in it.

"I wonder," he added rather ruefully, after the pause which the laugh had filled up, "I wonder whether I am one of them?"

"I don't think you are."

"And Ambrose Jennings?"

"That's a clever man!" was her reply.

And then she changed the conversation to criticism in general, and to the type of clever mind which, unable to create, analyses the creations of others sensitively.

"But I much prefer the creators," she presently said.

"So do I. They are like the fresh air compared with the air in a carefully closed room," said Craven. "Talking of closed rooms, don't you think it is strange the liking many brilliant men and women have, both creators and analysers of creators, for the atmosphere of garish or sordid cafes?"

"You are thinking of the Cafe Royal?"

"Yes. Do you know it?"

"Don't tell Beryl—but I have never been in it. Nevertheless, I know exactly what it is like."

"By hearsay?"

"Oh, no. In years gone by I have been into many of the cafes in Paris."

"And did you like them and the life in them?"

"In those days they often fascinated me, as no doubt the Cafe Royal and its life fascinates Beryl to-day. The hectic appeals to something in youth, when there is often fever in the blood. Strong lights, noise, the human pressure of crowds, the sight of myriads of faces, the sound of many voices—all that represents life to us when we are young. Calm, empty spaces, single notes, room all round us for breathing amply and fully, a face here or there—that doesn't seem like life to us then. Beryl dines with me alone sometimes. But she must finish up in the evening with a crowd if she is near the door of the place where the crowd is. And you must not tell me you never like the Cafe Royal, for if you do I shall not believe you."

"I do like it at times," he acknowledged. "But to-night, sitting here, the mere thought of it is almost hateful to me. It is all vermilion and orange colour, while this . . ."

"Is drab!"

"No, indeed! Dim purple, perhaps, or deepest green."

"You couldn't bear it for long. You would soon begin longing for vermilion again."

"You seem to think me very young. I am twenty-nine."

"Have you ceased to love wildness already?"

"No," he answered truthfully. "But there is something there which makes me feel as if it were almost vulgar."

"No, no. It need not be vulgar. It can be wonderful—beautiful, even. It can be like the wild light which sometimes breaks out in the midst of the blackness of a storm and which is wilder far than the darkest clouds. Do you ever read William Watson?"

"I have read some of his poems."

"There is one I think very beautiful. I wonder if you know it. 'Pass, thou wild heart, wild heart of youth that still hast half a will to stay—'"

She stopped and held her fan a little higher.

"I don't know it," he said.

"It always makes me feel that the man or woman who has never had the wild heart has never been truly and intensely human. But one must know when to stop, when to let the wild heart pass away."

"But if the heart wants to remain?"

"Then you must dominate it. Nothing is more pitiable, nothing is more disgusting, even, than wildness in old age. I have a horror of that. And I am certain that nothing else can affect youth so painfully. Old wildness—that must give youth nausea of the soul."

She spoke with a thrill of energy which penetrated Craven in a peculiar and fascinating way. He felt almost as if she sent a vital fluid through his veins.

Suddenly he thought of the "old guard," and he knew that not one of the truly marvellous women who belonged to it could hold him or charm him as this white-haired woman, with the frankly old face, could and did.

"After all," he thought, "it isn't the envelope that matters; it is the letter inside."

Deeply he believed that just then. He was, indeed, under a sort of spell for the moment. Could the spell be lasting? He looked at Lady Sellingworth's eyes in the lamplight and firelight, and, despite a certain not forgotten moment connected with the Hyde Park Hotel, he believed that it could. And Lady Sellingworth looked at him and knew that it could not. About such a matter she had no illusions.

And yet for years she had lived a life cloudy with illusions. What had led her out from those clouds? Braybrooke had hinted to Craven that possibly Seymour Portman knew the secret of Lady Sellingworth's abrupt desertion of the "old guard" and plunge into old age. But even he did not know it. For he loved her in a still, determined, undeviating way. And no woman would care to tell such a secret to a man who loved her and who was almost certain, barring the explosion of a moral bombshell, and perhaps even then, to go on loving her.

No one knew why Lady Sellingworth had abruptly and finally emerged from the world of illusions in which she had lived. But possibly a member of the underworld, a light-fingered gentleman of brazen assurance, had long ago guessed the reason for her sudden departure from the regiment of which she had been a conspicuous member; possibly he had guessed, or surmised, why she had sent in her papers. But even he could scarcely be certain.

The truth of the matter was this.

PART TWO

CHAPTER I

Lady Sellingworth belonged to a great English family, and had been brought up in healthy splendour, saved from the canker of too much luxury by the aristocratic love of sport which is a tradition in such English families as hers. As a girl she had been what a certain sporting earl described as "a leggy beauty." Even then she had shown a decided inclination to run wild and had seldom checked the inclination. Unusually tall and athletic, rather boyish in appearance, and of the thin, greyhound type, she had excelled in games and held her own in sports. She had shot in an era when comparatively few women shot, and in the hunting-field she had shown a reckless courage which had fascinated the hard-riding men who frequented her father's house. As she grew older her beauty had rapidly developed, and with it an insatiable love of admiration. Early she had realized that she was going to be a beauty, and had privately thanked the gods for her luck. She could scarcely have borne not to be a beauty; but, mercifully, it was all right. Woman's greatest gift was to be hers. When she looked into the glass and knew that, when she looked into men's eyes and knew it even more definitely, she felt merciless and eternal. In the dawn no end was in sight; in the dawn no end seemed possible.

From the age of sixteen onwards hers was the intimate joy, certainly one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all the joys of women, of knowing that all men looked at her with pleasure, that many men looked at her with longing, that she was incessantly desired.

From the time when she was sixteen she lived perpetually in that atmosphere which men throw round a daring and beautiful woman without even conscious intention, creating it irresistibly merely by their natural desire. And that atmosphere was the breath of life to her. Soon she could not imagine finding any real value in life without it. She often considered plain girls, dull girls, middle-aged women who had never had any beauty, any saving grace but that of freshness, and wondered how they managed to get along at all. What was the use of life to them? Nobody bothered about them, except, perhaps, a few relations, or what are called "old friends"—that is, people who, having always been accustomed to you, put up with you comfortably, and wear their carpet slippers in your presence without troubling whether you like slippers or would prefer them in high-heeled shoes.

As to old women, those from whom almost the last vestiges of what they once had been physically had fallen away, she was always charming to them; but she always wondered why they still seemed to cling on to life. They were done with. It was long ago all over for them. They did not matter any more, even if once they had mattered. Why did they still keep a hold on life with their skinny hands? Was it from fear of death, or what? Once she expressed her wonder about this to a man.

"Of course," she said. "I know they can't go just because they want to. But why do they want to stay?"

"Oh," he said, "I think lots of old ladies enjoy themselves immensely in their own way."

"Well, I can't understand it!" she said.

And she spoke the truth.

She flirted, of course. Her youthful years were complicated by a maze of flirtations, through which she wandered with apparently the greatest assurance, gaining knowledge of men.

Finally she married. She made what is called "a great match," the sort of match in every way suitable to such an aristocratic, beautiful and daring girl.

Then began her real reign.

Although such a keen sportswoman, she was also a woman who had a good brain, a quick understanding, and a genuine love of the intellectual and artistic side of life, for its own sake, not for any reason of fashion. She was of the type that rather makes fashions than follows them. As a married woman she was not only Diana in the open country, she was Egeria elsewhere. She liked and she wanted all types of men; the hard-bitten, keen-eyed, lean-flanked men who could give her a lead or take a lead from her over difficult country, and the softer breed of men, whose more rounded bodies were informed by sharp spirits, who, many of them, could not have sat a horse over the easiest fence, or perhaps even have brought down a stag at twenty paces, but who would dominate thousands from their desks, or from the stages of opera houses, or from adjustable seats in front of pianos, or from studios hung with embroideries and strewn with carpets of the East.

These knew how to admire and long for a beautiful woman quite as well as the men of the moors and the hunting field, and they were often more subtle in their ways of showing their feelings.

Lady Sellingworth had horses named after her and books dedicated to her. She moved in all sets which were penetrated by the violent zest for the life of the big world, and in all sets she more than held her own. She was as much at home in Chelsea as she was at Newmarket. Her beautifully disguised search for admiration extended far and wide, and she found what she wanted sometimes in unexpected places, in sombre Oxford libraries, in time-worn deaneries, in East-End settlements, through which she flashed now and then like a bird of Paradise, darting across the murk of a strange black country on its way to golden regions, as well as in Mayfair, in the Shires, in foreign capitals, and on the moors of Scotland.

Her husband was no obstacle in her way. She completely dominated him, even though she gave him no child. He knew she was, as he expressed it, "worth fifty" of him. Emphatically he was the husband of his wife, and five years after their marriage he died still adoring her.

She was sorry; she was even very sorry. And she withdrew from the great world in which she had been a moving spirit now for over ten years for the period of mourning, a year. But she was not overwhelmed by sorrow. It is so very difficult for the woman who lives by, and for, her beauty and her charm for men to be overwhelmed. One man has gone and she mourns him; but there are so many men left, all of them with eyes in which lamps may be set and with hearts to be broken.

It was at this time that she became very familiar with Paris.

She wanted to be away from London, so she took an apartment in Paris, and began to live there very quietly. Friends, of course, came to see her, and she began to study Paris thoroughly, not the gay, social Paris, but a very interesting Paris. Presently her freedom from the ordinary social ties began to amuse her. She had now so much time for all sorts of things which women very much in society miss more often than not. Never going to parties, she was able to go elsewhere. She went elsewhere. Always there had dwelt caged in her a certain wildness which did not come from her English blood. There was a foreign strain in her from the borders of Asia mingled with a strong Celtic strain. This wildness which in her girlhood she had let loose happily in games and sports, in violent flirtations, and in much daring skating over thin ice, which in her married life had spent itself in the whirl of society, and in the energies necessary to the attainment of an unchallenged position at the top of things, in her widowhood began to seek an outlet in Bohemia.

Paris can be a very kind or a very cruel city, in its gaiety hiding velvet or the claws of a tiger. To Lady Sellingworth—then Lady Manham—it was kind. It gave her its velvet. She knew a fresh type of life there, with much for the intellect, with not a little for the senses, even with something for the heart. It was there that she visited out-of-the-way cafes, where clever men met and talked over every subject on earth. A place like the Cafe Royal in London had no attraction for the Lady Sellingworth over sixty. That sort of thing, raised to the nth degree, had been familiar to her years and years ago, before Beryl Van Tuyn and Enid Blunt had been in their cradles.

And the freedom of her widowhood, with no tie at all, had become gradually very dear to her. She had felt free enough in her marriage. But this manner of life had more breathing space in it. There is no doubt that in that Paris year, especially in the second half of it, she allowed the wild strain in her to play as it had never played before, like a reckless child out of sight of parents and all relations.

When the mourning was over and she returned to London she was a woman who had progressed, but whether upon an upward or a downward path who shall decide? She had certainly become more fascinating. Her beauty was at its height. The year in Paris, lived almost wholly among clever and very unprejudiced French people, had given her a peculiar polish—one Frenchman who knew English slang called it "a shine"—which made her stand out among her English contemporaries. Many of them when girls had received a "finish" in Paris. But girls cannot go about as she had gone about. They had learnt French; she had learnt Paris. From that time onward she was probably the most truly cosmopolitan of all the aristocratic Englishwomen of her day. Distinguished foreigners who visited London generally paid their first private call on her. Her house was European rather than English. She kept, too, her apartment in Paris, and lived there almost as much as she lived in London. And, perhaps, her secret wildness was more at home there.

Scandal, of course, could not leave her untouched. But her position in society was never challenged. People said dreadful things about her, but everyone who did not know her wanted to know her, and no one who knew her wished not to know her. She "stood out" from all the other women in England of her day, not merely because of her beauty—she was not more beautiful than several of her contemporaries—but because of her gay distinction, a daring which was never, which could not be, ill bred, her extraordinary lack of all affectation, and a peculiar and delightful bonhomie which made her at home with everyone and everyone at home with her. Servants and dependents loved her. Everyone about her was fond of her. And yet she was certainly selfish. Invariably almost she was kind to people, but herself came first with her. She made few sacrifices, and many sacrificed themselves to her. There was seldom a moment when incense was not rising up before her altar, and the burnt offerings to her were innumerable.

And all through these years she was sinking more deeply into slavery, while she was ruling others. Her slavery was to herself. She was the captive of her own vanity. Her love of admiration had developed into an insatiable passion. She was ceaselessly in her tower spying out for fresh lovers. From afar off she perceived them, and when they drew near to her castle she stopped them on their way. She did not love them and cast them to death like Tamara of the Caucasus. No; but she required of them the pause on their travels, which was a tribute to her power. No one must pass her by as if she were an ordinary woman.

Probably there is no weed in all the human garden which grows so fast as vanity. Lady Sellingworth's vanity grew and grew with the years until it almost devoured her. It became an idee fixe in her. A few people no doubt knew this—a few women. But she was saved from all vulgarity of vanity by an inherent distinction, not only of manner but of something more intimate, which never quite abandoned her, which her vanity was never able to destroy. Although her vanity was colossal, she usually either concealed it, or if she showed it showed it subtly. She was not of the type which cannot pass a mirror in a restaurant without staring into it. She only looked into mirrors in private. Nor was she one of those women who powder their faces and rouge their lips before men in public places. It was impossible for her to be blatant. Nevertheless, her moral disease led her gradually to fall from her own secret standard of what a woman of her world should be. Craven had once said to himself that Lady Sellingworth could never seek the backstairs. He was not wholly right in this surmise about her. There was a time in her life—the time when she was, or was called, a professional beauty—when she could scarcely see a man's face without watching it for admiration. Although she preserved her delightfully unselfconscious manner she was almost ceaselessly conscious of self. Her own beauty was the idol which she worshipped and which she presented to the world expectant of the worship of others. There have been many women like her, but few who have been so clever in hiding their disease. But always seated in her brain there was an imp who understood, was contemptuous and mocked, an imp who knew what was coming to her, what comes to all the daughters of men who outlive youth and its shadowy triumphs. Her brain was ironic, while her temperament was passionate, and greedy in its pursuit of the food it clamoured for; her brain watched the unceasing chase with almost a bitterness of sarcasm, merging sometimes into a bitterness of pity. In some women there seems at times to be a dual personality, a woman of the blood at odds with a woman of the grey matter. It was so in Lady Sellingworth's case, but for a long time the former woman dominated the latter, whose empire was to come later with white hair and a ravaged face.

At the age of thirty-five, after some years of brilliant and even of despotic widowhood, she married again—Lord Sellingworth.

He was twenty-five years older than she was, ruggedly handsome, huge, lean, self-possessed, very clever, very worldly, and that unusual phenomenon, a genuine atheist. There was no doubt that he had a keen passion for her, one of those passions which sometimes flare up in a man of a strong and impetuous nature, who has lived too much, who is worn out, haunted at times by physical weariness, yet still fiercely determined to keep a tight grip on life and life's few real pleasures, the greatest of which is perhaps the indulgence of love.

Like her first marriage this marriage was apparently a success. Lord Sellingworth's cleverness fascinated his wife's brain, and led her to value the pursuits of the intellect more than she had ever done before. She was proud of his knowledge and wit, proud of being loved by a man of obvious value. After this marriage her house became more than ever the resort of the brilliant men of the day. But though Lord Sellingworth undoubtedly improved his wife's mental capacities, enlarged the horizon of her mind, and gave her new interests, without specially intending it he injured her soul. For he increased her worldliness and infected her with his atheism. She had always been devoted to the world. He continually suggested to her that there was nothing else, nothing beyond. All sense of mysticism had been left out of his nature. What he called "priestcraft" was abhorrent to him. The various religions seemed to him merely different forms of superstition, the assertions of their leaders only varying forms of humbug. He was greedy in searching for food to content the passions of the body, and was restless in pursuit of nutriment for the mind. But not believing in the soul he took no trouble about it.

Lady Sellingworth had this man at her feet. Nevertheless, in a certain way he dominated her. In hard mental power he was much her superior, and her mind became gradually subservient to his in many subtle ways. It was in his day that she developed that noticeable and almost reckless egoism which is summed up by the laconic saying, "after me the deluge." For Lord Sellingworth's atheism was not of the type which leads to active humanitarianism, but of the opposite type which leads to an exquisite selfishness. And he led his wife with him. He taught her the whole art of self-culture, and with it the whole art of self-worship, subtly extending to her mind that which for long had been concerned mainly with the body. They were two of the most selfish and two of the most charming people in London. For they were both thorough bred and naturally kind-hearted, and so there were always showers of crumbs falling from their well-spread table for the benefit of those about them. Their friends had a magnificent time with them and so did their servants. They liked others to be pleased with them and satisfied because of them. For they must live in a warm atmosphere. And nothing makes the atmosphere so cold about a man or woman as the egoism which shows itself in miserliness, or in the unwillingness that others should have a good time.

When Lady Sellingworth was thirty-nine Lord Sellingworth died abruptly. The doctors said that his heart was worn out; others said something different, something less kind.

For the second time Lady Sellingworth was a widow; for the second time she spent the period of mourning in Paris. And when it was over she went for a tour round the world with a small party of friends; Sir Guy Letchworth and his plain, but gay and clever wife, and Roger Brand, a millionaire and a famous Edwardian.

Brand was a bachelor, and had long been a devoted adherent of Lady Sellingworth's, and people, of course, said that he was going to marry her. But they eventually came back from their long tour comfortably disengaged. Brand went back to his enormous home in Park Lane, and Lady Sellingworth settled down in number 18A Berkeley Square.

She was now forty-one. She had arrived at a very difficult period in the life of a beauty. The freshness and bloom of youth had inevitably left her. The adjectives applied to her were changing. The word "lovely" was dropped. Its place was taken by such epithets as "handsome," "splendid looking," "brilliant," "striking," "alluring." People spoke of Lady Sellingworth's "good days"; and said of her, "Isn't she astonishing?" The word "zenith" was occasionally used in reference to her. A verb which began to be mixed up with her a good deal was the verb "to last." It was said of her that she "lasted" wonderfully. Women put the question, "Isn't it miraculous how Adela Sellingworth lasts?"

All this might, perhaps, be called complimentary. But women are not as a rule specially fond of such compliments. When kind friends speak of a woman's "good days" there is an implication that some of her days are bad. Lady Sellingworth knew as well as any woman which compliments are left-handed and which are not. On one occasion soon after she returned to London from her tour round the world a woman friend said to her:

"Adela, you have never looked better than you do now. Do you know what you remind me of?"

The woman was an American. Lady Sellingworth replied carelessly:

"I haven't the slightest idea."

"You remind me of our wonderful Indian summers that come in October. How do you manage it?"

That come in October?

These words struck a chill through Lady Sellingworth. Suddenly she felt the autumn in her. She had been in America: she had known the glory of its Indian summer; she had also known that Indian summer's startling sudden collapse. Winter comes swiftly after those almost unnaturally golden days. And what is there left in winter for a woman who has lived for her beauty since she was sixteen years old? The freedom of a second widowhood would be only chill loneliness in winter. She saw herself like a figure in the distance, sitting over a fire alone. But little warmth would come from that fire. The warmth that was necessary to her came from quite other sources than coal or wood kindled and giving out flames.

Her vanity shuddered. She realized strongly, perhaps, for the first time, that people were just beginning to think of her as a woman inevitably on the wane. She looked into her mirror, stared into it, and tried to consider herself impartially. She was certainly very good-looking. Her tall figure had never been made ugly by fatness. She was not the victim of what is sometimes called "the elderly spread." But although she was slim, considering her great height, she thought that she discerned signs of a thickening tendency. She must take that in time. Her figure must not be allowed to degenerate. And her face?

She was so accustomed to her face, and so accustomed to its being a beautiful face, that it was difficult to her to regard it with cold impartiality. But she tried to; tried to look at it as she might have looked at the face of another woman, of say, a rival beauty.

What age did the face seem to be? If she had seen it passing by in the street what age would she have guessed its owner to be? Something in the thirties; but perhaps in the late thirties? She wasn't quite certain about it. Really it is so difficult to look at yourself quite impartially. And she did not wish to fall into exaggeration, to be hypercritical. She wished to be strictly reasonable, to see herself exactly as she was. The eyes were brilliant, but did they look like young eyes?

No, they didn't. And yet they were full of light. There was nothing faded about them. But somehow at that moment they looked terribly experienced. With a conscious effort she tried to change their expression, to make them look less full of knowledge. But it seemed to her that she failed utterly. No, they were not young eyes; they never could be young eyes. The long accustomed woman of the world was mirrored in them with her many experiences. They were beautiful in their way, but their way had nothing to do with youth. And near the eyes, very near, there were definite traces of maturity. A few, as yet very faint, lines showed; and there were shadows; and there was—she could only call it to herself "a slightly hollow look," which she had never observed in any girl, or, so far as she remembered, in any young woman.

She gazed at her mouth and then at her throat. Both showed signs of age; the throat especially, she thought. The lips were fine, finely curved, voluptuous. But they were somehow not fresh lips. In some mysterious way, which really she could not define, life had marked them as mature. There were a couple of little furrows in the throat and there was also a slightly "drawn" look on each side just below the line of the jaw. By the temples also, close to the hair, there was something which did not look young.

Lady Sellingworth felt very cold. At that moment she probably exaggerated in her mind the effect of her appearance. She plunged down into pessimism about herself. A sort of desperation came upon her. Underneath all her conquering charm, hidden away like a trembling bird under depths of green leaves, there was a secret diffidence of which she had occasionally been conscious during her life. It had no doubt been born with her, had lived in her as long as she had lived. Very few people knew of its existence. But she knew, had known of it as long as she remembered. Now that diffidence seemed to hold her with talons, to press its beak into her heart.

She felt that she could not face the world with any assurance if she lost her beauty. She had charm, cleverness, rank, position, money. She knew all her advantages. But at that moment she seemed to be confronting penury. And as she continued to look into the mirror ugliness seemed to grow in the woman she saw like a spreading disease till she felt that she would be frightened to show herself to anyone, and wished she could hide from everyone who knew her.

That absurdly morbid fit passed, of course. It could not continue, except in a woman who was physically ill, and Lady Sellingworth was quite well. But it left its mark in her mind. From that day she began to take intense trouble with herself. Hitherto she had been inclined to trust her own beauty. She had relied on it almost instinctively. And that strange, hidden diffidence, when it had manifested itself, had manifested itself in connexion with social things, the success of a dinner, or with things of the mind, the success or non-success of a conversation with a clever man. She had never spoken of it to anyone, for she had always been more or less ashamed of it, and had brought silence to her aid in the endeavour to stamp it out lest it should impair her power over others. But now it was quickened within her. It grew, and in its growth tortured her.

"How do you manage it?"

That not very kind question of the friend who had compared her to an Indian summer remained with Lady Sellingworth. Since she had considered herself in the mirror she had realized that she had attained that critical period in a beauty's life when she must begin incessantly to manage to continue a beauty. Hitherto, beyond always dressing perfectly and taking care to be properly "turned out," she had done less to herself than many women habitually do. Now she swung to the opposite extreme. There is no need to describe what she did. She did, or had done to her, all that she considered necessary, and she considered that a very great deal was necessary.

A certain Greek, who was a marvellous expert in his line, helped her at a very high figure. And she helped herself by much rigid abstinence, by denying natural appetites, by patient physical discipline. Her fight against the years was tremendous, and was conducted with extraordinary courage.

But nevertheless it seemed to her that a curse was put upon her; in that she was surely one of those women who, once they take the first step upon the downward slope, are compelled to go forward with a damnable rapidity.

The more she "managed it" the more there seemed to be to manage. From the time when she frankly gave herself into the clutches of artificiality the natural physical merit of her seemed to her to deteriorate at a speed which was headlong.

A hideous leap in the downward course took place presently. She began to dye her hair. She was not such a fool as to change its natural colour. She merely concealed the fact that white hairs were beginning to grow on her head at an age when many simple people, who don't care particularly what they look like—sensible clergymen's wives in the provinces, and others unknown to fashion—remain as brown as a berry, or as pleasantly auburn as the rind of a chestnut.

The knowledge of those hidden white hairs haunted her. She felt horribly ashamed of them. She hated them with an intense, and almost despairing, hatred. For they stamped the terrific difference between her body and her nature.

It seemed to her that in her nature she retained all the passions of youth. This was not strictly true, for no woman over forty has precisely the same passions as an ardent girl, however ardent she may be. But the "wild heart," spoken of by Lady Sellingworth to Craven, still beat in her breast, and the vanity of the girl, enormously increased by the passage of the years, still lived intensely in the middle-aged woman. It was perhaps this natural wildness combined with her vanity which tortured Lady Sellingworth most at this period of her life. She still desired happiness and pleasure greedily, indeed with almost unnatural greediness; she still felt that life robbed of the admiration and the longing of men would not be worth living.

Beryl Van Tuyn had spoken of a photograph of Lady Sellingworth taken when she was about forty-nine, and had said that, though very handsome, it showed a fausse jeunesse, and revealed a woman looking vain and imperious, a woman with the expression of one always on the watch for new lovers. And there had been a cruel truth in her words. For, from the time when she had given herself to artificiality until the time, some nine years later, when she had plunged into what had seemed to her, and to many others, something very like old age, Lady Sellingworth had definitely and continuously deteriorated, as all those do who try to defy any natural process. Carrying on a fight in which there is a possibility of winning may not do serious harm to a character, but carrying on a fight which must inevitably be lost always hardens and embitters the combatant. During those years of her fausse jeunesse Lady Sellingworth was at her worst.

For one thing she became the victim of jealousy. She was secretly jealous of good-looking young women, and, spreading her evil wide like a cloud, she was even jealous of youth. To be young was to possess a gift which she had lost, and a gift which men love as they love but few things. She could not help secretly hating the possessors of it.

She had now become enrolled in the "old guard," and had adopted as her device their motto, "Never give up." She was one of the more or less mysterious fighters of London. She fought youth incessantly, and she fought Time. And sometimes the weariness and the nausea of battle lay heavy upon her. Her expression began to change. She never lost, she never could lose, her distinction, but it was slightly blurred, slightly tarnished. She preserved the appearance of bonhomie, but her cordiality, her good nature, were not what they had been. Formerly she had had marvellous spirits; now she was often accompanied into the world by the black dog. And when she was alone he sat by the hearth with her.

She began to hate being a widow. Sometimes she thought that she wished she had had children. But then it occurred to her that they might have been daughters, lovely girls now perhaps, showing to society what she had once been. With such daughters she would surely have been forced into abdication. For she knew that she could never have entered into a contest with her own children. Perhaps it was best as it was, best that she was childless.

She might no doubt have married a third time. Sir Seymour Portman, a bachelor for her sake, would have asked nothing better than to become her husband. And there were other middle-aged and old men who would gladly have linked themselves with her, and who did not scruple to tell her so. But now she could not bear the idea of making a "suitable" match. Lord Sellingworth had been old, and she had been happy with him. But she had felt, and had considered herself to be, young when she had married him. The contrast between him and herself had been flattering to her vanity. It would be different now. And besides, with the coming of middle age, and the fatal fading of physical attraction, there had come into her a painful obsession.

As much as she hated youth in women she was attracted by it in men. She began secretly to worship youth as it showed itself in the other sex. Something in her clamoured for the admiration and the longing of the young men who were amorous of life, who were comparatively new to the fray, who had the ardour and the freshness which could have mated with hers when she was a girl, but which now contrasted violently with her terribly complete experience and growing morbidity. She felt that now she could never marry a man of her own age or older than herself, not simply because she could not love such a man, but because she would be perpetually in danger of loving a man of quite another type.

She entered upon a very ugly period, perhaps the ugliest there can be in the secret life of a woman. And it was then that there came definitely into her face, and was fixed there, the expression noted by Miss Van Tuyn in the photograph in Mrs. Ackroyd's drawing-room, the expression of a woman on the pounce.

There is no food so satisfying to the vanity of a middle-aged woman as the admiration and desire of young men. Lady Sellingworth longed for, and sought for, that food, but not without inward shame, and occasionally something that approached inward horror. For she had, and never was able to lose, a sense of what was due not merely to herself but to her better self. Here the woman of the blood was at grips with the woman of the grey matter. And the imp enthroned somewhere within her watched, marked, remembered, condemned.

That imp began to persecute Lady Sellingworth. She would have slain him if she could, for he was horribly critical, and remained cold through all her intensities. In Paris he had often been useful to her, for irony is appreciated in Paris, and he was strongly ironical. Often she felt as if he had eyes fixed upon her sardonically, when she was giving way to the woman in her blood. In Paris it had been different. For there, at any rate in all the earlier years, he had been criticizing and laughing at others. Now his attention was always on her. There were moments when she could almost hear his ugly, whispering voice telling her all he thought about her, about her appearance, her conduct, her future, about her connexions with others now, about the loneliness that was coming upon her. She saw many other women who were evidently content in, and unconscious of, their follies. Why was she not like them? Why had she been singled out for this persecution of the brain. It is terrible to have a brain which mocks at you instead of happily mocking at others. And that was her case. Later she was to understand herself better; she was to understand that her secret diffidence was connected with the imp, was the imp's child in her as it were; later, too, she was to learn that the imp was working for her eventual salvation, in the moral sense.

But she had not yet reached that turning in the path of her life.

During all this period her existence was apparently as successful and brilliant as ever. She was still a leader in London, knowing and known to everyone, going to all interesting functions, receiving at her house all the famous men and women of the day. To an observer it would have seemed that she occupied an impregnable position and that she was having a wonderful time. But she was really a very unhappy woman at violent odds with herself.

On one occasion when she was giving a dinner in her house a discussion broke out on the question of happiness. It was asked by someone, "If you could demand of the gods one gift, with the certainty of receiving it, what gift would you demand?" Various answers were given. One said, "Youth for as long as I lived"; another "Perfect health"; another "Supreme beauty"; another "The most brilliant intellect of my time"; another "The love and admiration of all I came in contact with." Finally a sad-looking elderly man, poet, philosopher, and the former administrator of a great province in India, was appealed to. His answer was, "Complete peace of mind." And on his answer followed the general discussion about happiness.

When the party broke up and Lady Sellingworth was alone she thought almost desperately about that discussion and about the last answer to the question which had been put.

Complete peace of mind! How extraordinary it would be to possess that! She could scarcely conceive of it, and it seemed to her that even in her most wonderful days, in her radiant and careless youth, when she had had almost everything, she had never had that. But then she had not even wanted to have it. Complete peace seems but a chilly sort of thing to youth in its quick-silver time. But later on in life we love combat less.

Suddenly Lady Sellingworth realized the age of her mind, and it seemed to her that she was a horrible mixture of incongruities. She was physically aging slowly but surely. She had appetites which were in direct conflict with age. She had desires all of which turned towards youth. And her mind was quite old. It must be, she said to herself, because now she was sitting still and longing to know that complete peace of mind which an old man had talked of that evening at her dinner table.

A sort of panic shook her as she thought of all the antagonists which at a certain period of life gather together to attack and slay youth, all vestiges of youth, in the human being; the unsatisfied appetites, the revolts of the body, the wearinesses of soul, and the subtle and contradictory desires which lie hidden deep in the mind.

She was now intensely careful about her body, had brought its care almost to the level of a finely finished art. But she had not troubled about the disciplining of her mind. Yet the undisciplined mind can work havoc in the tissues of the body. Youth of the mind, if preserved, helps the body to continue apparently young. It may not be able to cause the body actually to look young, but in some mysterious way it throws round the body a youthful atmosphere which deceives many people, which creates an illusion. And the strange thing is that the more intimate people are with one possessing that mental youthfulness, the more strong is the illusion upon them. Atmosphere has a spell which increases upon us the longer we remain bathed in it. Lady Sellingworth said all this to herself that night, and rebuked herself for letting her mind go towards old age. She rebelled against the longing for complete peace of mind because she now connected such a longing with stagnation. And men, especially young men, love vivacity, restlessness, the swift flying temperament. Such a temperament suggests to them youth. It is old age which sits still. Youth is for ever on the move.

"I must not long for peace or anything of that kind!" she said to herself.

Nevertheless the lack of all mental peace ravages the body.

She scarcely knew what to do for the best. But eventually she tried to take her mind in hand, for she was afraid of it, afraid of its age, afraid of the effect its age might eventually have upon her appearance. So she strove to train it backwards towards youthfulness. For now she was sure that she was not one of those fortunate women who have naturally young minds which refuse to grow old. She knew a few such women. She envied them almost bitterly. There was no need for them to strive. She watched them surreptitiously, studied them, tried to master their secret.

Presently a tragic episode occurred in her life.

She fell in love with a man of about twenty-three. He was the son of people whom she knew very well in Paris, French people who were almost her contemporaries, and was the sporting type of Frenchman, very good-looking, lively, satirical and strong. He was a famous lawn tennis player and came over to London for the tournament at Wimbledon. She had already seen him in Paris, and had known him when he was little more than a boy. But she had never thought much about him in those days. For in those days she had not been haunted by the passion for youth which possessed her now.

Louis de Rocheouart visited at her house as a matter of course, was agreeable and gallant to her because she was a charming and influential woman and an old friend of his family. But he did not think of her as a woman to whom it was possible that a man of his age could make love. He looked upon her as one who had been a famous beauty, but who was now merely a clever, well-preserved and extremely successful member of the "old guard" of society in London. Her "day" as a beauty was in his humble opinion quite over. She belonged to his mother's day. He knew that. And his mother happened to be one of those delightful Frenchwomen who are spirituelle at all ages, but who never pretend to be anything they are not. His mother's hair was already grey, and she had two married daughters, one of whom had been trusting enough to make her a grandmother.

While Rocheouart was in London a number of popular middle-aged women banded together and gave a very smart ball at Prince's. Lady Sellingworth was one of the hostesses, all of whom danced merrily and appeared to be in excellent spirits and health. It was certainly one of the very best balls of the season, and young men turned up at it in large numbers. Among them was young Rocheouart.

Lady Sellingworth danced with him more than once. That night she had almost managed to deceive herself as to the real truth of life. The ball was being such a success; the scramble for invitations had been so great; the young men evidently found things so lively, and seemed to be in such exuberant spirits, that she was carried away, and really felt as if youth were once more dancing through her veins and shining out of her eyes.

The "old guard" were in excelsis that night; the Edwardians were in their glory on the top of the world. Probably more than one of them thought, "They can say what they like but we can cut out the girls when we choose." Their savoir faire was immense. Many of them still possessed an amazing amount of the joie de vivre. And some of them were thoroughly sensible women, saved from absurdity by the blessed sense of humour.

But Lady Sellingworth was by this time desperately in love with Louis de Rocheouart, and her sense of humour was in abeyance that night. In consequence, she was the victim of a mortification which she was never to forget as long as she lived.

Towards the end of the evening she happened to be standing with Sir Seymour Portman near the entrance to the ballroom, and overheard a scrap of conversation between two people just behind them.

A girl's light voice said:

"Have you heard the name Cora Wellingborough has given to this ball?"

(The Duchess of Wellingborough was one of the hostesses.)

"No," replied a voice, which Lady Sellingworth recognized as the voice of young Rocheouart. "What is it?"

"She calls it 'The Hags' Hop'! Isn't it delicious of her? It will be all over London to-morrow. The name will stick. In the annuals of London festivities to-night will always be remembered as the night of the famous Hags' Hop."

Lady Sellingworth heard Rocheouart's strong, manly young laugh.

"That's just like the duchess!" he said. "She's simply made of humour and always hits the nail on the head. And how clever of her to give the right name to the ball herself instead of leaving it for some pretty girl to do. The Hags' Hop! It's perfect! If she hadn't said that, you would have before the evening was out, and then all the charming hags would have been furious with you."

The girl laughed, and she and Rocheouart passed Lady Sellingworth without noticing her and went into the ballroom.

She looked at them as they began to dance; then she looked at the Duchess of Wellingborough, who was also dancing.

The duchess was frankly middle-aged. She was very good-looking, but she had let her figure go. She was quite obviously the victim of the "elderly spread." Her health was excellent, her sense of humour unfailing. She never pretended to anything, but was as natural almost as a big child. Although a widow, she wanted no lover. She often said that she had "got beyond all that sort of thing." Another of her laughingly frank sayings was: "No young man need be afraid of me." In consequence of her gaiety, humour, frankness and hospitality she was universally popular.

But that night Lady Sellingworth almost hated her.

The Hags' Hop!

That terrible name stuck in Lady Sellingworth's mind and seemed to fasten there like a wound in a body.

As Rocheouart's partner had foretold, the name went all over London. The duchess's mot even got into a picture paper, and everyone laughed about it. The duchess was delighted. Nobody seemed to mind. Even Lady Sellingworth forced herself to quote the saying and to make merry over it. But from that day she gave up dancing entirely. Nothing would induce her even to join in a formal royal quadrille.

Before his return to Paris, Rocheouart came to bid her good-bye. Although she was still, as she supposed, madly in love with him, she concealed it, or, if she showed it, did so only by being rather unnaturally cold with him. When he was gone she felt desperate.

Her imp had perhaps controlled her during the short time of Rocheouart's final visit, had mocked and made her fear him. When she was alone, however, he vanished for the moment.

From that time the hidden diffidence in Lady Sellingworth was her deadly enemy, because it fought perpetually with her vanity and with her almost uncontrollable desires. Sometimes she was tempted to give way to it entirely and to retire from the fray. But she asked herself what she had to retire to. The thought of a life lived in the shade, or of a definitely middle-aged life, prolonged in such sunshine as falls upon grey-haired heads, was terrible to her. She was not like the Duchess of Wellingborough. She was cursed with what was called in her set "a temperament," and she did not know how to conquer it, did not dare, even, to try to conquer it.

She soon forgot Louis de Rocheouart, but his place was not long left empty. She fell in love with another young man.

Eventually—by this time she had almost ceased to struggle, was not far from being a complete victim to her temperament—she seriously considered the possibility of marrying again, and of marrying a man many years younger than herself. Several women whom she knew had done this. Why should not she do it? Such marriages seldom turned out well, seldom lasted very long. But there were exceptions to every rule. Her marriage, if she made it, might be an exception. She was now only forty-eight. (She had reached the age when that qualifying word is applied to the years.) Women older, much older, than herself, had married mere boys. She did not intend to do that. But why should she not take a charming man of, say, thirty into her life?

The mere thought of having such a husband, such a companion in Number 18A, Berkeley Square, sent a glow through her mind and body. What a flood of virility, anticipation, new strength, new interests he would bring with him! She imagined his loud, careless step on the stairs, his strong bass or baritone voice resounding in the rooms; she heard the doors banged by his reckless hand; she saw his raincoats, his caps, his golf clubs, his gun cases littering the hall. When she motored he would be at the wheel instead of a detached and rigid-faced chauffeur, and he would whirl her along, taking risk, all the time.

But would he be able to love her?

Her diffidence and her vanity fought over that question; fought furiously, and with an ugly tenacity. It seemed that the vanity conquered. For she resolved to make the trial.

Many striking advantages were on her side. She could give any man a magnificent social position, could take him into the heart of the great world. Her husband, unless he were absolutely impossible—and of course he would not be—would be welcomed everywhere because of her. She was rich. She had unusual charm. She was quick witted, intelligent, well read, full of tact and knowledge of the world. Surely she could be a splendid companion, even a great aid, to any man of the least ambition. And she was still very handsome—with difficulty.

She and her Greek alone knew exactly how much trouble had to be taken to keep her as she was when she went among people.

She had not been able to do much with her mind. It seemed uncontrollable by her. There was no harmony in her inner life. The diversities within her were sharp, intense. In her kingdom of self there was perpetual rebellion. And the disorder in her moral life had hastened the aging process more even than she was aware of. Underneath the artificial beauty of her appearance she was now older than her years.

But she was still very handsome—with difficulty.

She hardened herself after the fight and resolved that, if she chose, she could still make almost any man love her. That she could easily fascinate she knew. Most people were subject to her easy charm and to the delightfully unaffected manner which no amount of vanity had ever been able to rid her of. Surely the temporarily fascinated man might easily be changed into the permanent lover! Fear assailed her certainly when she thought of the danger of deliberately contrasting with her maturity the vividness of youth. To do what she thought of doing would be to run a great risk. When she had married Lord Sellingworth she had provided herself with a foil to her beauty and to her comparative youth. To marry a young man would be to make herself the foil. He would emphasize her age by his lack of years. Could she dare it?

Again she hardened herself and resolved that she would dare it. The wildness in her came uppermost, rose to recklessness. After me the deluge! She might not be happy long if she married a young husband, but she might be happy for a time. The mere marriage would surely be a triumph for her. And if she had three years, two years, even one year of happiness, she would sing a Laus Deo and let the deluge close over her head.

She began, in woman's quiet but penetrating way, to look about her. She met many young men in the world, in fact nearly all the young eligible men of the time. Many of them came to her house, for she often gave parties to which she asked not only the "old guard" and the well-known men of the day, but also the young married women. Now she began to give small dances to which she asked pretty young girls. There was a ballroom built out at the back of her house. It was often in use. The pretty young girls began to say she was "a dear" to bother so much about them. Dancing men voted her a thundering good hostess and a most good-natured woman. In popularity she almost cut out the Duchess of Wellingborough, who sometimes gave dances, too, for young people.

Really through it all she was on the watch, was seeking the possible husband.

Presently she found the man with whom she could imagine being almost desperately happy if he would only fall in with her hidden views. They were so carefully hidden that not one of her friends, not one of the "old guard," suspected that she had made up her mind to marry again and to make what is universally called "a foolish marriage."

His name was Rupert Louth, and he was the fourth son of an impecunious but delightful peer, Lord Blyston. He was close upon thirty, and had spent the greater part of his time, since his twentieth year, out of England. He had ranched in Canada, and had also done something vague of the outdoor kind in Texas. He had fought, and was a good man of his hands. His health was splendid. He was as hard as nails in condition, and as lively and ready as they make them. Many things he could do, but one thing he had never been able to do. He had never been able to make money. His gift lay rather in the direction of joyously spending it. This gift distracted his father, who confided to Lady Sellingworth his fears for the lad's—he would insist on calling Rupert the lad—for the lad's future. Here he was back on the family's hands with expensive tastes and no prospects whatever!

"And he's always after the women, too!" said Lord Blyston, with admiring despair. "He's been away from them so long there's no holding him."

After a pause he added:

"My dear Adela, if you want to do me a good turn find the lad a wife. His poor mother's gone, or she would have done it. What he wants is a wife who can manage him, with a decent amount of money."

Without exactly saying so, Lady Sellingworth implied that she would see what she could do for Rupert.

From that moment Lord Blyston pushed "the lad" perpetually towards 18A Berkeley Square.

Rupert Louth was fair and very good-looking, reckless and full of go. And wherever he went he carried with him an outdoor atmosphere. He cared nothing for books, music, or intellectual pursuits. Nevertheless, he was at home everywhere, and quite as much at ease in a woman's drawing-room as rounding up cattle in Canada or lassooing wild horses in Texas. He lived entirely and wholeheartedly for the day, and was a magnificent specimen of dashing animal life; for certainly the animal predominated in him.

Lady Sellingworth fell in love with him—it really was like falling in love each time—and resolved to marry him. A wonderful breath of manhood and youth exhaled from "the lad" and almost intoxicated her. It called to her wildness. It brought back to her the days when she had been a magnificent girl, had shot over the moors, and had more than held her own in the hunting field. After she had married Lord Sellingworth she had given up shooting and hunting, had devoted herself more keenly to the arts, to mental and purely social pursuits, to the opera, the forming of a salon, to politics and to entertaining, than to the physical pleasures which had formerly played such a prominent part in her life. Since his death she had put down her horses. But now she began to change her mode of living. She went with Rupert to Tattersalls, and they picked up some good horses together. She began riding again, and lent him a mount. She was perpetually at Hurlingham and Ranelagh, and developed a passion for polo, which he played remarkably well. She played lawn tennis at King's Club in the morning, and renewed her energy at golf.

Louth was really struck by her activity and competence, and said of her that she was a damned good sport and as active as a cat. He also said that there wasn't a country in the world that bred such wonderful old women as England. This remark he made to his father, who rejoined that Adela Sellingworth was not an old woman.

"Well, she must be near fifty!" said his son. "And if that isn't old for a woman where are we to look for it?"

Lord Blyston replied that there were many women far older than Adela Sellingworth, to which his son answered:

"Anyhow, she's as active as a cat, so why don't you marry her?"

"She's twenty years too young for me," said Lord Blyston. "I should bore her to death."

It had just occurred to him that Rupert could be very comfortable on Lord Sellingworth's and Lord Manham's combined fortunes, though he had no idea that Lady Sellingworth had ever thought of "the lad" as a possible husband.

Other people, however, noticed the new development in her life.

Every morning quite early she was to be seen, perfectly mounted, cantering in the Row, often with Rupert Louth beside her. Her extraordinary interest in every branch of athletics was generally remarked. She even went to boxing matches, and was persuaded to give away prizes at a big meeting at Stamford Bridge.

Although she never said a word about it to anyone, this sudden outburst of intense bodily activity at her age presently began to tire, then almost to exhaust her. The strain upon her was great, too great. Whatever Rupert Louth did, he never turned a hair. But she was nearly twenty years older than he was, and decidedly out of training. She fought desperately against her physical fatigue, and showed a gay face to the world. But a horrible conviction possessed her. She began presently to feel certain that her effort to live up to Rupert Louth's health and vigour was hastening the aging process in her body. By what she was doing she was marring her chance of preserving into old age the appearance of comparative youth. Sometimes at night, when all the activities of the day were over and there was no prospect of seeing Rupert again until, at earliest, the following morning, she felt absolutely haggard with weariness of body—felt as she said to herself with a shudder, like an old hag. But she could not give up, could not rest, for Rupert expected of everyone who was not definitely laid on the shelf inexhaustible energy, tireless vitality. His own perpetual freshness was a marvel, and fascinated Lady Sellingworth. To be with him was like being with eternal youth, and made her long for her own lost youth with an ache of desperation. But to act being young is hideously different from being actually young. She acted astonishingly well, but she paid for every moment of the travesty, and Rupert never noticed, never had the least suspicion of all she was going through on account of him.

To him she was merely a magnificently hospitable pal of his father's, who took a kindly interest in him. He found her capital company. He, like everyone else, felt her easy fascination, enjoyed being with her. But, like Rocheouart of the past days, he never thought of her as a possible lover. Nor did it ever occur to him that she was thinking of him as a possible husband. He always wanted, and generally managed to have a splendid time; and he was quite willing to be petted and spoilt and made much of; but he was not, under a mask of carelessness, a cold and persistent egoist. He really was just what he seemed to be, a light-hearted, rather uproarious, and very healthy young man, intent on enjoying himself, and recklessly indifferent to the future. He was quite willing to eat Lady Sellingworth's excellent dinners, to ride her spirited horses, to sit in her opera box and look at pretty women while others listened to music, but it never occurred to him that it would be the act of a wise man to try to put her fortune into his own pocket at the price of marrying her.

His lack of self-interest, which she divined, charmed Lady Sellingworth; on the other hand, she was tormented by his detachment from her, by his lack of all vision of the truth of the situation. And she was perpetually tortured by jealousy.

Before she had been in love with Rupert she had often felt jealous. All women of her temperament are subject to jealousy, and all middle-aged people who worship youth unsuitably have felt its sting. But she had never before known jealousy as she knew it now.

Although she was so often with Rupert she was more often not with him. He made no pretences of virtue to her or to anyone else. He was a cheery Pagan, a good sport and—no doubt—a devil among the women. Being a thorough gentleman he never talked, as some vulgar men do, of his conquests. But Lady Sellingworth knew that his silence probably covered a multitude of sins. And her ignorance of the greater part of his life often ravaged her.

What was he doing when he was not with her? Who was he making love to?

His name was not specially connected with that of any girl whom she knew in society. But she had reason to know that he spent a lot of his time out of society in circles to which she had never penetrated. Doubtless he met quantities of women whose names she had never heard of, unknown women of the stage, women who went to night clubs, women of the curious world which floats between the aristocracy and the respectable middle classes, which is as well dressed as the one and greedier even than the other, which seems always to have unlimited money, and which, nevertheless, has often no visible means of subsistence.

She lay awake often, when she badly needed sleep, wondering where Rupert was and what he was doing.

Jealousy, combined with unnatural physical exertion, and the perpetual endeavour to throw round her an atmosphere of youth, energy and unceasing cheerfulness, wrought havoc in Lady Sellingworth. Her appearance began to deteriorate. Deeper lines became visible near her eyes, and the light of those eyes was feverish. Her nerves began to go to pieces. Restlessness increased upon her. She was scarcely able to keep still for a moment. The more she needed repose the more incapable of repose she became. The effort to seem younger, gayer, stronger than she was became at last almost convulsive. Her social art was tarnished. The mechanism began to be visible.

People noticed the change in her and began to discuss it, and more than one of the "old guard" hit upon the reason of it. It became subtly known and whispered about that Adela Sellingworth was desperately in love with Rupert Louth. Several of her friends hinted at their knowledge to Lady Sellingworth, and she was forced to laugh at the idea as absurd, knowing that her laughter would serve no good end. These experienced women knew. Impossible to deceive them about a thing of that kind! They were mercilessly capable in detecting a hidden passion in one of their body. Their intrigues and loves were usually common property, known to, and frankly discussed by them all.

Lady Sellingworth presently had the satisfaction of knowing that the whole of the "old guard" was talking about her passion for Rupert Louth. This fact drove her to a hard decision which was not natural to her. She wanted to marry Rupert because she was in love with him. But now she felt she must marry him to save her own pride before her merciless fellow-women. She decided that the time had come when she must trample on her own delicacy and prove that she still possessed the power of a conqueror. Otherwise she would be laughed at by the greater part of the society in which she usually lived.

She resolved to open Rupert Louth's eyes and to make him understand that she and all she stood for were at his disposal. She knew he was up to the eyes in debt. She knew he had no prospects. Lord Blyston had no money to give him, and was for ever in difficulties himself. It was a critical moment for Louth, and a critical moment for her. Their marriage would smooth out the whole situation, would set him free from all money miseries, and her from greater miseries still—torments of desire, and the horror of being laughed at or pitied by her set. And in any case she felt that the time had arrived when she must do something drastic; must either achieve or frankly and definitely give up. She knew that she was nearing the end of her tether. She could not much longer keep up the brilliant pretence of being an untiring Amazon crammed full of the joie de vivre which she had assumed for the purpose of winning Rupert Louth as a husband. Her powers of persistence were rapidly waning. Only will drove her along, in defiance of the warnings and protests of her body. But the untiring Amazon was cracking up, to use a favourite expression of Louth's. Soon the weary, middle-aged woman must claim her miserable rights: the right to be tired occasionally, the right to "slack off" at certain hours of the day, the right to find certain things neither suitable nor amusing to her, the right, in fact, to be now and then a middle-aged woman. Certainly something in her said to Lady Sellingworth: "In your marriage, if you marry, you will have to act even better, even more strenuously, than you are acting now. Being in love as you are, you will never be able to dare to be your true self. Your whole married life will be a perpetual throwing of dust in the eyes of your husband. To keep him you will have to live backwards, or to try to live backwards, all the time. If you are tired now, what will you be then?" And she knew that the voice was speaking the truth. Her imp, too, was watching her closely and with an ugly intensity of irony as she approached her decision.

Nevertheless, she defied him; she defied the voice within her, and took it. She said to herself, or her worn nervous system said to her, that there was nothing else to be done. In her fatigue of body and nerves she felt reckless as only the nearly worn out feel. Something—she didn't know what—had cast the die for her. It was her fate to open Rupert Louth's eyes, to make him see; it was her fate to force her will into a last strong spasm. She would not look farther than the day. She would not contemplate her married life imaginatively, held in contemplation, like a victim, by the icy hands of reason. She would kick reason out, harden herself, give her wildness free play, and act, concentrating on the present with all the force of which her diseased nerves were capable.

Instead of thinking just then "after me the deluge," her thought was "after my marriage to Rupert Louth the deluge." She would, she must, make him her husband. It would be perhaps the last assertion of her power. She knew enough of men to know that such an assertion might well be followed by disaster. But she was prepared to brave any disaster except one, the losing of Louth and the subsequent ironical amusement of the "old guard."

Two or three days later Louth called, mounted on one of her horses, to take her for a ride in the park.

During the previous night Lady Sellingworth had scarcely slept at all. She had got up feeling desperately nervous and almost lightheaded. On looking in the glass she had been shocked at her appearance, but she had managed to alter that considerably, although not so completely as she wished. Depression, following inevitably on insomnia, had fixed its claws in her. She felt deadly, almost terrible, and as if her face must be showing plainly the ugliness of her mental condition. For she seemed to have lost control over it. The facial muscles seemed to have hardened, to have become fixed. When the servant came to tell her that Louth and the horses were at the door she was almost afraid to go down, lest he should see at once in her face the strong will power which she had summoned up; as a weapon in this crisis of her life.

As she went slowly downstairs she forced herself to smile. The smile came with difficulty, but it came, and when she met Louth he did not seem to notice any peculiarity in her. But, to tell the truth, he scarcely seemed to notice her at all with any particularity. For her strange and abnormal pre-occupation was matched by a like pre-occupation in him. He took off his hat, bade her good morning, and helped her skilfully to mount. But she saw at once that he was not as usual. His face was grave and looked almost thoughtful. The merry light had gone out of his eyes. And, strangest phenomenon of all, he was tongue-tied. They started away from the house, and rode through Mayfair towards the park in absolute silence.

She began to wonder very much what was the matter with Rupert, and guessed that he had "come an awful cropper" of some kind. It must certainly be an exceptional cropper to cloud his spirit. Perhaps he had lost a really large sum of money, or perhaps he—The thought of a woman came suddenly to her, she did not know why. Suspicion, jealousy woke in her. She glanced sideways at Rupert under her hard hat. He looked splendid on horseback, handsomer even than when he was on foot. For he was that rare thing, a really perfect horseman. His appearance disarmed her. She longed to do something for him, by some act of glowing generosity to win him completely. But they were still in the streets, and she said nothing. Directly they turned into the green quietude of the park, however, she yielded to her impulse and spoke, and asked him bluntly what was the matter.

He did not fence with her. Fencing was not easy to him. He turned in the saddle, faced her, and told her that he had made a damned fool of himself. Still bent on generosity, on being more than a friend to him, she asked him to tell her how. His reply almost stunned her. A fortnight previously he had secretly married a Miss Willoughby—really a Miss Bertha Crouch, and quite possibly of Crouch End—who was appearing in a piece at the Alhambra Theatre, but who had not yet arrived at the dignity of a "speaking part." This young lady, it seemed, had already "landed" Louth in expenses which he didn't know how to meet. What was he to do? She was the loveliest thing on earth, but she was accustomed to living in unbridled luxury. In fact she wanted the earth, and he was longing to give it to her. But how? Where could he possibly get hold of enough money for the purchase of the earth on behalf of Miss Bertha Crouch—now Willoughby, or, rather, now the Hon. Mrs. Rupert Louth? His face softened, his manner grew almost boyishly eager, as he poured confidences into Lady Sellingworth's ears. She was his one real friend! She was a woman of the world. She had lived ever so much longer than he had and knew five times as much. What would she advise? Might he bring little Bertha to see her? Bertha was really the most splendid little sort, although naturally she wanted to have the things other women had—etc., etc.

When she got home that day Lady Sellingworth almost crumbled. By a supreme effort during the rest of the ride she had managed to conceal the fact that she had received a blow over the heart. The pride on which she had been intending to trample when she came downstairs that morning had come to her aid in that difficult moment. The woman of the world had, as Louth would have said, "come up to the scratch." But when she was alone she gave way to an access of furious despair; and, shut up in her bedroom behind locked doors, was just a savage human being who had been horribly wounded, and who was unable to take any revenge for the wound. She would not take any revenge, because she was not the sort of woman who could go quite into the gutter. And she knew even in her writhings of despair that Rupert Louth would go scot free. She would never try to punish him for what he had done to her: and he would never know he had done it, unless one of the "old guard" told him.

It was when she thought of the "old guard" that Lady Sellingworth almost crumbled, almost went to pieces. For she knew that whatever she did, or left undone, she would never succeed in deceiving its members. She would not have been deceived herself if circumstances had been changed, if another woman had been in her situation and she had been an onlooker. "They" would all know.

For a moment she thought of flight.

But this episode ended in the usual way; it ended in the usual effort of the poor human being to safeguard the sacred things by deception. Lady Sellingworth somehow—how do human beings achieve such efforts?—pulled herself together and gave herself to pretence. She pretended to Louth that she was his best friend and had never thought of being anything else. She was the receptacle for the cascade of his confidences. She swore to help him in any way she could. Even after she received "the Crouch," once Willoughby and still Willoughby to the "nuts" who frequented the stalls of the Alhambra. She received that tall and voluptuous young woman, with her haughty face and her disdainful airs, and she bore with her horrible proprietorship of Louth. And finally she broke it to Lord Blyston at Rupert's earnest request.

That should have been her supreme effort. But it was not. There was no rest in pretence. As soon as Lord Blyston knew, everyone knew, including the "old guard." And then, of course, Lady Sellingworth's energies had all to be called into full play.

It was no wonder if underneath the cleverness of her Greek she aged rapidly, more rapidly than was natural in a woman of her years. For she had piled effort on effort. She had been young for Rupert Louth until she had been physically exhausted; and then she had been old for him until she was mentally exhausted. The hardy Amazon had been forced to change in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, into the calm and middle-aged adviser of hot passioned youth, into the steady unselfish confidante, into the breaker of untoward news to the venerable parent—in fact, into Mother Hubbard, as Lady Sellingworth more than once desperately told herself.

"Mother Hubbard! Mother Hubbard! I'm just Mother Hubbard to him and to that horrible girl!"

And she saw herself as Mother Hubbard, a "dame." And she alone knew how absolutely bare her cupboard was at that time. But she struggled on magnificently, taking no rest; she faced the "old guard" with splendid courage, in fact with such courage that most of them pretended to be deceived, and perhaps—for is not everything possible in this life?—perhaps two or three of them really were deceived.

The Duchess of Wellingborough said often at this time: "Addie Sellingworth has the stuff in her of a leader of forlorn hopes!"

Lord Blyston paid up for "the Crouch," once Willoughby, who had now left the Alhambra disconsolate. He paid up by selling the only estate he still possessed, and letting his one remaining country house to an extraordinarily vulgar manufacturer from the Midlands, who did not know a Turner from a Velasquez until he was told. And for the time "the Crouch" was as satisfied as a woman of her type can ever be.

Time passed on. Lady Sellingworth went about everywhere with a smiling carefully-made-up face and a heart full of dust and ashes.

But even then she could not make up her mind finally to abandon all pretence of youth, all hope of youth's distractions, pleasures, even joys. She had a terribly obstinate nature, it seemed, a terribly strong lust after life.

Even her imp could not lash her into acceptance of the inevitable, could not drive her with his thongs of irony into the dignity which only comes when the human being knows how to give up, and when.

But what the imp could not achieve was eventually achieved by a man, whose name Lady Sellingworth did not know.

This was how it happened.

One day when Lady Sellingworth was walking down Bond Street—it was in the morning and she was with the Duchess of Wellingborough—an extraordinarily handsome young man, whom neither of them knew, met them and passed by. He was tall, brown skinned, with soft, very intelligent brown eyes, and strong, manly and splendidly cut features. His thick brown hair was brushed, his little brown moustache was cut, like a Guardsman's. But he was certainly not a Guardsman. He was not even an Englishman, although he was dressed in a smart country suit made evidently by a first-rate London tailor. There was something faintly exotic about his eyes, and his way of holding himself and moving, which suggested to Lady Sellingworth either Spain or South America. She was not quite sure which. He gave her a long look as he went by, and she felt positive that he turned to glance after her when he had passed her. But this she never knew, as naturally she did not turn her head.

"What an extraordinarily good-looking man that was!" said the Duchess of Wellingborough. "I wonder who he is. If—," and she mentioned a well-known Spanish duke, "had a brother that might be the man. Do you know who he is?"

"No," said Lady Sellingworth.

"Well, he must know who you are."

"Why?"

"He seemed deeply interested in you."

Lady Sellingworth wanted to say that a young man might possibly be deeply interested in her without knowing who she was. But she did not say it. It was not worth while. And she knew the duchess had not meant to be ill-mannered.

She lunched with the duchess that day in Grosvenor Square, and met several of the "old guard" whom she knew very well, disastrously well. After lunch the duchess alluded to the brown man they had met in Bond Street, described him minutely, and asked if anyone knew him. Nobody knew him. But after the description everyone wanted to know him. It was generally supposed that he must be one of the strangers from distant countries who are perpetually flocking to London.

"We shall probably all know him in a week or two," said someone. "A man of that type is certain to have brought introductions."

"If he has brought one for Adela I'm sure he'll deliver that first," said the duchess, with her usual almost boisterous good humour.

And thereupon she told the "old guard" of the stranger's evident interest in Lady Sellingworth.

Although she completely concealed it, Lady Sellingworth felt decided interest in the brown man. The truth was that his long and ardent—yet somehow not impudently ardent—look at her had stirred the dust and ashes in her heart. It was as if a little of the dust rose and floated away, as if some of the ashes crumbled into a faint grey powder which was almost nothingness.

At that moment she was in the dangerous mood when a woman of her type will give herself to almost any distraction which promises a possible adventure, or which holds any food for her almost starving vanity. Her love—or was it really lust—for Rupert Louth still ravaged her. The thought of "the Crouch's" triumph still persecuted her mind. Terrible pictures of a happiness she had no share in still made every night hideous to her. She longed for Rupert Louth, but she longed also to be reinstated in her self-esteem. That glance of a stranger had helped her. She asked herself whether a man of that type, young, amazingly handsome, would ever send such a glance to Mother Hubbard. Suddenly she felt safer, as if she could hold up her head once more. Really she had always held it up, but to herself, since Louth's blunt confession, she had been a woman bowed down, old, done with, a thing fit for the scrap heap. Now a slight, almost trembling sensation of returning self-esteem stole through her. She could not have been mistaken about the brown man's interest in her, for the Duchess of Wellingborough had specially noticed it. She wondered who he was, whether he really had brought introductions, where he was staying, whether he would presently appear in her set. His brown eyes were gentle and yet enterprising. He looked like a sportsman, she thought, and yet as if he were more intellectual, more subtle than Louth. There seemed to be a slight thread of sympathy between her and him! She had felt it immediately when they had met in Bond Street. She wondered whether he had felt it too.

In all probability if Lady Sellingworth had been in a thoroughly normal condition at this time she would not have thought twice about such a trifling episode as a stranger's glance at her in the street. But she was not in a normal condition. She was the prey of acute depression and morbidity. Life was becoming hideous to her. She exaggerated her loneliness in the midst of society. She had mentally constructed for herself a new life with Louth as her husband. Imaginatively she had lived that life until it had become strangely familiar to her, as an imagined life can become to a highly strung woman. The abrupt and brutal withdrawal of all possibility of it as a reality had made the solitude of her widowhood seem suddenly terrible, unnatural, a sort of nightmare. She had moments of desperation in which she said to herself, "This cannot go on. I can't live alone any more or I shall go mad." In such moments she sometimes thought of rewarding Sir Seymour Portman's long fidelity. But something in her, something imperious, shrank at the thought. She did not want to marry an elderly man.

And yet it seemed that no young man would ever want to marry her.

She shuddered before the mysteries of the flesh. Often she was shaken by a storm of self-pity. Darkness yawned before her. And she still longed, as she thought no other woman could ever have longed, for happiness, companionship, a virile affection.

For some days she did not see the stranger again, although she was several times in Bond Street. She began to think, to fear, he had left London; yes—to fear! It had come to that! Realizing it, she felt humiliation. But his eyes had seemed to tell her that she possessed for him great attraction! She longed to see those eyes again, to decipher their message more carefully. The exact meaning of it might have escaped her in that brief instant of encounter. She wondered whether the young man had known who she was, or whether he had merely been suddenly struck by her appearance, and had thought, "I wish I knew that woman." She wondered what exactly was his social status. No doubt if he had been English she could have "placed" him at once, or if he had been French. But he was neither the one nor the other. And she had had little time to make up her mind about him, although, of course, his good looks had leaped to the eye.

She had begun to think that Destiny had decided against another encounter between her and this man when one day Seymour Portman asked her to lunch with him at the Carlton. She accepted and went into the restaurant at the appointed time. It was crowded with people, many of whom she knew, but one table near that allotted to the general's party had two empty chairs before it. On it was a card with the word "Reserved." Soon after the general's guests had begun to lunch, when Lady Sellingworth was in the full flow of conversation with her host, by whose side she was sitting, and with a hunting peer whom she had known all her life, and who sat on her other side, two people made their way to the table near by and sat down in the empty chairs. One was an old woman in a coal-black wig, with a white face and faded eyes, rather vague and dull in appearance, but well dressed and quietly self-assured, the other was the man Lady Sellingworth had met in Bond Street. He took the chair which was nearly opposite to her; but whether deliberately or by accident she had no time to notice. He did not look at her for several minutes after sitting down. He was apparently busy ordering lunch, consulting with a waiter, and speaking to his old companion, whose coal-black wig made a rather strange contrast with her lined white cheeks and curiously indefinite eyes. But presently, with a sort of strong deliberation, his gaze was turned on Lady Sellingworth, and she knew at once that he had seen her when he came in. She met his gaze for an instant, and this time seemed to be definitely aware of some mysterious thread of sympathy between her and him. Sir Seymour spoke to her in his quiet, rather deep voice, and she turned towards him, and as she did so she felt she knew, as she had never known before, that she could never marry him, that something in her that was of her essence was irrevocably dedicated to youth and the beauty of youth, which is like no other beauty. The wildness of her which did not die, which probably would never die, was capable of trampling over Sir Seymour's fidelity to get to unstable, selfish and careless youth, was capable of casting away his fidelity for the infidelity of youth. As she met her host's grave eyes, she sentenced him in her heart to eternal watching at her gate. She could not, she never would be able to, let him into the secret room where she was really at home.

During lunch she now and then glanced towards the old woman and the stranger. They evidently knew no one, for no one took any notice of them, and they did not seem to be on the look out for acquaintances. Many people passed by them, entering and leaving the restaurant, but there were no glances of recognition, no greetings. Only some of the women looked at the young man as if struck, or almost startled, by his good looks. Certainly he was amazingly handsome. His brown skin suggested the sun; his figure athletic exercises; the expression of his face audacity and complete self-possession. Yet there was in his large eyes a look of almost appealing gentleness, as if he were seeking something, some sympathy, some affection, perhaps, which he needed and had never yet found. Several times when she glanced towards him with careful casualness, Lady Sellingworth found his eyes fixed upon her with this no doubt unconsciously appealing expression in them. She knew that this man recognized her as the woman he had met in Bond Street. She felt positive that for some reason he was intent upon her, that he was deeply interested in her. For what reason? Her woman's vanity, leaping eagerly up like a flame that had been damped down for a time but that now was being coaxed into bright burning, told her that there could be only one reason. Why is a handsome young man interested in a woman whom he does not know and has only met casually in the street? The mysterious attraction of sex supplied, Lady Sellingworth thought, the only possible answer. She had not been able to attract Rupert Louth, but she attracted this man, strongly, romantically, perhaps. The knowledge—for it seemed like knowledge, though it was really only surmise—warmed her whole nature. She felt again the delicious conquering sensation which she had lost. She emerged out of humiliation. Her vivacity grew as the lunch progressed. Suddenly she felt good-looking, fascinating, even brilliant. The horrible dreariness of life had departed from her, driven away by the look in a stranger's eyes.

Towards the end of lunch the woman on Sir Seymour's other side said to him:

"Do you know who that man is—the young man opposite to that funny South American-looking old woman with the black wig?"

Sir Seymour looked for a moment at the brown man with his cool, direct, summing-up, soldier's eyes.

"No," he answered. "I've never set eyes on him before."

"I think he is the best-looking man I have ever seen," said the woman.

"No doubt—very good-looking, very good-looking!" said her host; "but on the wrong side of the line, I should say."

"The wrong side of the line? What do you mean?"

"The shady side," said Sir Seymour.

And then he turned to speak to Lady Sellingworth.

She had overheard the conversation, and felt suddenly angry with him. But she concealed her vexation and merely said to herself that men are as jealous of each other as women are jealous, that a man cannot bear to hear another man praised by a woman. Possibly—she was not sure of this—possibly Sir Seymour had noticed that she was interested in the stranger. He was very sharp in all matters connected with her. His affection increased his natural acuteness. She resolved to be very careful, even very deceptive. And she said:

"Isn't it odd how good looks, good manners and perfect clothes, even combined with charm, cannot conceal the fact that a man is an outsider?"

"Ah, you agree with me!" Sir Seymour said, looking suddenly pleased. "That's good! Men and women are seldom at one on such matters."

Lady Sellingworth shot a glance at the man discussed and felt absurdly like a traitor.

Soon afterwards Sir Seymour's lunch party broke up.

In leaving the restaurant Lady Sellingworth passed so close to the young man that her gown almost brushed against him. He looked up at her, and this time the meaning of his glance was unmistakable. It said: "I want to know you. How can I get to know you?"

She went home feeling almost excited. On the hall table of her house she found a note from Rupert Louth asking her whether she would help "little Bertha" by speaking up for her to a certain great dressmaker, who had apparently been informed of the Louths' shaky finances. Louth's obstinate reliance on her as a devoted friend of him and his disdainfully vulgar young wife began to irritate Lady Sellingworth almost beyond endurance. She took the letter up with her into the drawing-room, and sat down by the writing-table holding it in her hand. It had come at a dangerous moment.

Louth's blindness now exasperated her, although she had desperately done her best to close his eyes to the real nature of her feeling for him and to the unexpressed intentions she had formed concerning him and had been forced to abandon. It was maddening to be tacitly rejected as a possible wife and to be enthusiastically claimed as a self-sacrificing friend. Surely no woman born of woman could be expected to stand it. At that moment Lady Sellingworth began almost to hate Rupert Louth.

What a contrast there was between his gross misunderstanding of her and the brown man's understanding! Already she began to tell herself that this man who did not know her nevertheless in some subtle, almost occult, way had a clear understanding of her present need. He wanted sympathy—his eyes said that—but he had sympathy to give. She began to hate the controlling absurdities of civilization. All her wildness seemed to rise up and rush to the surface. How inhuman, how against nature it was, that two human beings who wished to know each other should be held back from such knowledge by mere convention, by the unwritten law of the solemn and formal introduction! A great happiness might lie in their intercourse, but conventionality solemnly and selfishly forbade it, unless they could find a common acquaintance to mumble a few unmeaning words over them. Mumbo-Jumbo! What a fantastic world of stupidly obedient puppets this world of London was! She said to herself that she hated it. Then she thought of her first widowhood and of her curious year in Paris.

There she might more easily have made the acquaintance of the unknown man in some Bohemian cafe, where people talked to each other casually, giving way to their natural impulses, drifting in and out as the whim took them, careless of the convenances or actively despising them. In London, at any rate if one is English and cursed by being well known, one lives in a strait waist-coat. Lady Sellingworth felt the impossibility of speaking to a stranger without an introduction in spite of her secret wildness.

And if he spoke to her?

She remembered Sir Seymour's instant judgment on him. It had made her feel very angry at the time when it was delivered, but then she had not held any mental debate about it. She had simply been secretly up in arms against an attack on the man she was interested in. Now she thought about it more seriously.

Although she had never been able to love Sir Seymour, she esteemed him very highly and valued his friendship very much. She also respected his intellect and his character. He was not a petty man, but an honest, brave and far-seeing man of the world. Such a man's opinion was certainly worth something. One could not put it aside as if it were the opinion of a fool. And after a brief glance at the stranger Sir Seymour had unhesitatingly pronounced him to be an outsider.

Was he an outsider?

As a rule Lady Sellingworth was swift in deciding what was the social status of a man. She could "place" a man as quickly as any woman. But, honestly, she could not make up her mind about the stranger. Although he was so exceptionally good-looking, perhaps, he was not exactly distinguished looking. But she had known dukes and Cabinet Ministers who resembled farmers and butlers, young men of high rank who had the appearance of grooms or bookies. It was difficult to be sure about anyone without personal knowledge of him.

When she had first seen the young man in Bond Street it had certainly not occurred to her that there was anything common or shady in his appearance. And the Duchess of Wellingborough had not hinted that she held such an opinion about him. And surely women are quicker about such matters than men.

Lady Sellingworth decided that Seymour Portman was prejudiced. Old courtiers are apt to be prejudiced. Always mixing with the most distinguished men of their time, they acquire, perhaps too easily, a habit of looking down upon ordinary but quite respectable people.

Here Lady Sellingworth suddenly smiled. The adjective "respectable" certainly did not fit the Bond Street young man. He looked slightly exotic! That, no doubt, had set Sir Seymour against him. He was not of the usual type of club man. He "intrigued" her terribly. As the Duchess of Wellingborough would have phrased it, she was "crazy" to know him. She even said to herself that she did not care whether he was on the shady side of the line or not. Abruptly a strong democratic feeling took possession of her. In the affections, in the passions, differences of rank did not count.

Rupert Louth had married a Crouch!

Lady Sellingworth looked at his note which was still in her hand, and memories of the disdainful young beauty "queening it"—that really was the only appropriate expression—"queening it" with vulgar gentility among the simple mannered, well-bred people to whom Louth belonged rose up in her mind. How terrible were those definite airs of being a lady! How truly unspeakable were those august condescensions of the undeniable Crouch!

When Lady Sellingworth mused on them her sense of the equality before God of all human creatures decidedly weakened.

She wrote a brief letter to Louth declining to "speak up" to the great dressmaker. "Little Bertha" must manage without her aid. She made this quite clear, but she wrote very charmingly, and sent her love at the end to little Bertha. That done, almost violently she dismissed Louth and his wife from her mind and became democratic again!

Putting Louth and little Bertha aside, when it came to the affections and the passions what could one be but just a human being? Rank did not count when the heart was awake. She felt intensely human just then. And she continued to feel so. Life was quickened for her by the presence in London of a stranger whom nobody knew. This might be a humiliating fact. But how many facts connected with human beings if sternly considered are humiliating!

And nobody knew of her fact.

Every morning at this time she woke up with the hope of a little adventure during the day. When she went out she was alive to the possibility of a new encounter with the unknown man. And she met him several times, walking about town, sometimes alone, sometimes with the old lady, and once with another man, a thin sallow individual who looked like a Frenchman. And each time he sent her a glance which seemed almost to implore her to know him.

But how could she know him? She never met him in society. Evidently he knew no one whom she knew. She began to be intensely irritated by her leaping desire which was constantly thwarted. That this man was in love with her and longing to know her she now firmly believed. She wished to know him. She wished it more than she wished for anything else in the world just then. But the gulf of conventionality yawned between them, and there seemed no likelihood of its ever being bridged. Sometimes she condemned the man for not being adventurous, for not taking his courage in both hands and speaking to her without an introduction. At other times she told herself that his not doing this proved him to be a gentleman, in spite of what Sir Seymour Portman had thought him. In defiance of his longing to know her he would not insult her.

But if he only knew how she was pining for the insult!

And yet if he had spoke to her perhaps she would have been angry.

She discovered eventually that he was staying at the Carlton Hotel, for one day on her way to the restaurant she saw him with a key in his hand—evidently the key of his room. That same day she heard him speak for the first time. After lunch, when she was in the Palm Court, he came and stood quite close to where she was sitting. The thin, sallow individual was with him. They lighted cigars and looked about them. And presently she heard them talking in French. The thin man said something which she did not catch. In reply the other said, speaking very distinctly, almost loudly:

"I shall go over to Paris on Thursday morning next. I shall stay at the Ritz Hotel."

That was all Lady Sellingworth heard. He had intended her to hear it. She was certain of that. For immediately afterwards he glanced at her and then moved away, like a man who has carried out an intention and can relax and be idle. He sat down by a table a little way off, and a waiter brought coffee for him and his companion.

His voice, when he spoke the few words, had sounded agreeable. His French was excellent, but he had a slight foreign accent which Lady Sellingworth at once detected.

Paris! He was going to Paris on Thursday!

She was quite positive that he had wished her to know that. Why?

There could be only one reason. She guessed that he had become as fiercely irritated by their situation as she was, that he was tempting her to break away and to do something definite, that he wanted her to leave London. She still had her apartment in Paris. Could he know that? Could he have seen her in Paris without her knowledge and have followed her to London?

She began to feel really excited, and there was something almost youthful in her excitement. Yet she was on the eve of a horrible passing. For that day was her last day in the forties. On the following morning she would wake up a woman of fifty.

While the two men were still having their coffee Lady Sellingworth and her friend got up to go away. As her tall figure disappeared the brown man whispered something to his companion and they both smiled. Then they continued talking in very low voices, and not in French.

Paris! All the rest of that day Lady Sellingworth thought about Paris! Already it stood for a great deal in her life. Was it perhaps going to stand for much more? In Paris long ago—she wished it were not so long ago—she had tasted a curious freedom, had given herself to her wildness, had enlarged her boundaries. And now Paris called her again, called her through the voice of this man whom she did not yet know.

Deliberately that day he had summoned her to Paris. She had no doubt about that. And if she went? He must have some quite definite intention connected with his wish for her to go. It could only be a romantic intention.

And yet to-morrow she would be fifty!

He was quite young. He could not be more than five-and-twenty.

For a moment her imp spoke loudly in her ear. He told her that by this time she must have learnt her lesson, that it was useless to pretend that she had not, that Rupert Louth's marriage had taught her all that she needed to know, and that now she must realize that the time for adventures, for romance, for the secret indulgence of the passions, was in her case irrevocably over. "Fifty! Fifty! Fifty!" he knelled in her ears. And there were obscure voices within her which backed him up, faintly, as if half afraid, agreeing with him.

She listened. She could not help listening, though she hated it. And for a moment she was almost inclined to submit to the irony of the imp, to trample upon her desire, and to grasp hands once and for all with her self-respect.

The imp said to her: "If you go to Paris you will be making a fool of yourself. That man doesn't really want you to go. He is only a mischievous boy amusing himself at your expense. Perhaps he has made a bet with that friend of his that you will cross on the same day that he does. You are far too old for adventures. Look in the glass and see yourself as you really are. Remember your folly with Rupert Louth, and this time try to be wise."

But something else in her, the persistent vanity, perhaps, of a once very beautiful woman, told her that her attraction was not dead, and that if she obeyed her imp she would simply be throwing away the chance of a great joy. Once again her thoughts went to marriage. Once again she dreamed of a young man falling romantically in love with her, and of taking him into her life, and of making his life wonderful by her influence and her connexions.

Once again she was driven by her wildness.

The end of it was that she summoned her maid and told her that they were going over to Paris for a few days on the following Thursday. The maid was not surprised. She supposed that my lady wanted some new gowns. She asked, and was told, what to pack.

Now Lady Sellingworth, as all her friends and many others knew, possessed an extremely valuable collection of jewels, and seldom, or never, moved far without taking a part of the collection with her. She loved jewels, and usually wore them in the evening, and as she was often seen in public—at the opera and elsewhere—her diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and pearls had often been admired, and perhaps longed for, by strangers.

When she went to Paris on this occasion she took a jewel-case with her. In it there were perhaps fifty thousand pounds' worth of gems. Her maid, a woman who had been with her for years, was in charge of the case except when Lady Sellingworth was actually in the train. Then Lady Sellingworth had it with her in a reserved first-class carriage for the whole of which she paid.

The journey was not eventful. But to Lady Sellingworth it was an adventure.

The brown man was on the train with his thin, sardonic friend, and with the old woman Lady Sellingworth had seen with him in London.

The sight of this party—she saw them stepping into the Pullman car as she was going to her reserved carriage—surprised her. She had expected that the stranger would travel alone. As she sat down in her corner facing the engine, with the jewel-case on the seat next to her, she felt an obscure irritation. A man in search of adventure does not usually take two people—one of them an old woman in a black wig—with him when he sets out on his travels. A trio banishes romance. And how can a woman be thrilled by a family party?

For a moment Lady Sellingworth felt anger against the stranger. For a moment she wished she had not undertaken the journey. It occurred to her that perhaps she had made a humiliating mistake when she thought that the brown man wished, and intended, her to go to Paris because he was going. Her pride was alarmed. She saw plainly for a moment the mud into which vanity had led her, and she longed to get out of the train and to remain in London. But how could she account to her maid for such a sudden change of plans? What could she say to her household? She knew, of course, that she owed them no explanation. But still—and her friends? She had told everybody that she was going to Paris. They would think her crazy for giving up the journey after she was actually in the train. And she had seen two or three acquaintances on the platform. No; she must make the journey now. It was too late to give it up. But she wished intensely she had not undertaken it.

At the moment of this wish of hers, coming from the Pullman, the brown man walked slowly by on the platform, alone. His eyes were searching the train with keen attention. But Lady Sellingworth happened to be leaning back, and he did not see her. She knew he was looking for her. He went on out of her sight. She sat still in her corner, and presently saw him coming back. This time he saw her, and did something which for the moment startled her. On the window of the carriage, next the seat opposite to hers, was pasted a label with "Reserved" printed on it in big letters. Underneath was written: "For the Countess of Sellingworth." When the man saw Lady Sellingworth in her corner he gave no sign of recognition but he took out of the breast pocket of his travelling coat a pocket-book, went deliberately up to the window, looked hard at the label, and then wrote something—her name, no doubt—in his book. This done, he put the book back in his pocket and walked gravely away without glancing at her again.

And now Lady Sellingworth no longer regretted that she was going to Paris. What the man had just done had reassured her. It was now evident to her that the first time they had met in Bond Street he had not known who she was or anything about her. He must simply have been struck by her beauty, and from that moment had wished to know her. Ever since then he must have been longing to know who she was. The fact that he had evidently not discovered her name till he had read it on the label pasted on the railway carriage window convinced her that, in spite of his boldness in showing her his feelings, he was a scrupulous man. A careless man could certainly have found out who she was at the Carlton, by asking a waiter. Evidently he had not chosen to do that. The omission showed delicacy, refinement of nature. It pleased her. It made her feel safe. She felt that the man was a gentleman, one who could respect a woman. Sir Seymour had been wrong in his hasty judgment. An outsider would not have behaved in such a way. That the stranger had deliberately taken down her name in his book while she was watching him did not displease her at all. He wished her to know of his longing, but he was evidently determined to keep it hidden from others.

She felt now in the very heart of a romantic adventure, and thrilled with excitement about the future. What would happen when they all got to Paris? It was evident to her now that he did not know she had an apartment there—unless, indeed, he had first seen her in Paris and had, perhaps, followed her to London! But even if that were so it was unlikely that he knew where she lived.

In any case she knew he was going to the Ritz.

The train flew on towards the sea while she mused over possibilities and imagined events in Paris.

She knew now, of course, that the stranger was absolutely out of her world. His ignorance proved to her that he could not be in any society she moved in. She guessed that he was some charming young man from a distance, come to Europe perhaps for the first time—some ardent youth from Brazil, from Peru, from Mexico! The guess gave colour to the adventure. He knew her name now. She wondered what his name was. And she wondered about the old woman in the wig and about the sardonic friend. In what relation did the three people stand to each other?

She could not divine. But she thought that perhaps the old woman was the mother of the man she wished to know.

She had a private cabin on the boat. It was on the top deck. But, as the weather was fine and the sea fairly calm, her maid occupied it with the jewel-case, while she sat in the open on a deck chair, well wrapped up in a fur rug. Presently an acquaintance, a colonel in the Life Guards, joined her, established himself in a chair at her side, and kept her busy with conversation.

When the ship drew out into the Channel several men began to pace up and down the deck with the sturdy determination of good sailors resolved upon getting health from the salt briskness of the sea. Among them were the two men of the trio. The old woman had evidently gone into hiding.

As Lady Sellingworth conversed with her colonel she made time, as a woman can, for a careful and detailed consideration of the man on whom her thoughts were concentrated. Although he did not look at her as he passed up and down the deck, she knew that he had seen where she was sitting. And, without letting the colonel see what she was doing, she followed the tall, athletic figure in the long, rough, greenish-brown overcoat with her eyes, looking away when it drew very near to her. And now and then she looked at its companion.

In the Paris rapide she was again alone in a carriage reserved for her. She did not go into the restaurant to lunch, as she hated eating in a crowd. Instead, her maid brought her a luncheon basket which had been supplied by the chef in Berkeley Square. After eating she smoked a cigarette and read the French papers which she had bought at the Calais station. And then she sat still and looked out of the window, and thought and dreamed and wondered and desired.

Although she did not know it, she was living through almost the last of those dreams which are the rightful property of youth, but which sometimes, obstinate and deceitful, haunt elderly minds, usually to their undoing.

The light began to fade and the dream to become more actual. She lived again as she had lived in the days when she was a reigning beauty, when there was no question of her having to seek for the joys and the adventures of life. In the twilight of France she reigned.

A shadow passed by in the corridor. She had scarcely seen it. Rather she had felt its passing. But the dream was gone. She was alert, tense, expectant. Paris was near. And he was near. She linked the two together in her mind. And she felt that she was drawing close to a climax in her life. A conviction took hold of her that some big, some determining event was going to happen in Paris, that she would return to London different—a changed woman.

Happiness changes! She was travelling in search of happiness. The wild blood in her leaped at the thought of grasping happiness. And she felt reckless. She would dare all, would do anything, if only she might capture happiness. Dignity, self-respect, propriety, the conventions—what value had they really? To bow down to them—does that bring happiness? Out of the way with them, and a straight course for the human satisfaction which comes only in following the dictates of the nature one is born with!

Lights twinkled here and there in the gloom. Again the shadow passed in the corridor. A moment later Lady Sellingworth's maid appeared to take charge of the jewel-case.

The crowd at the Gare du Nord was great, and the station was badly lit. Lady Sellingworth did not see her reason for coming to Paris. A carriage was waiting for her. She got into it with her jewel-case, and drove away to her apartment, leaving her maid to follow with the luggage.

In the evening she dined alone, and she went to bed early.

She had made no engagements in Paris; had not told any of her friends there that she was going to be there for some days. She had no wish to go into society. Her wish was to be perfectly free. But as she lay in bed in her pretty, familiar room, she began to wonder what she was going to do. She had come to Paris suddenly, driven by an intense caprice, without making any plans, without even deciding how long she was going to stay. She had imagined that in loneliness she would keep a hold on liberty. But now she began to wonder about things.

Even her secret wildness did not tell her that she could "knock about" in Paris like a man. For one thing she was far too well known for that. Many people might recognize her. When she had been much younger she had certainly been to all sorts of odd places, and had had a wonderful time. But somehow, with the passing of the years, she had learnt to pay some attention to the imp within her, though there were moments when she defied him. And he told her that she simply could not now do many of the daring things which she had done when she was a brilliant and lovely young woman. Besides, what would be the use? Almost suddenly she realized the difficulty of her situation.

She could not very well go about Paris alone. And yet to go about in company must inevitably frustrate the only purpose which had brought her to Paris. She had come there with an almost overwhelming desire, but with no plan for its realization.

But surely he had a plan. He must certainly have one if, as she still believed, in spite of the trio, he had meant her to come to Paris when he did. She wondered intensely what his plan was. He looked very determined, audacious even, in spite of the curious and almost pleading softness of his eyes, a softness which had haunted her imagination ever since she had first seen him. She felt convinced that, once thoroughly roused, he would be a man who would stick at very little, perhaps at nothing, in carrying out a design he had formed. His design was surely to make her acquaintance, and to make it in Paris. Yet he had come over with two people, while she had come alone. What was he going to do? She longed to know his plan. She wished to conform to it. Yet how could she do that in total ignorance of what his plan was? Perhaps he knew her address and would communicate with her. But that morning he had not even known her name! She felt excited but puzzled. As the night grew late she told herself that she must cease from thinking and try to sleep. She must leave the near future in the lap of the gods. But she could not make her mind a blank. Over and over again she revolved the matter which obsessed her in her mind. Almost for the first time in her life she ardently wished she were a man, able to take the initiative in any matter of love.

The clocks of Paris were striking three before at last she fell asleep.

When she woke in the morning late and had had her coffee she did not know how she was going to spend the day. She felt full of anticipation, excited, yet vague, and usually lonely. The post brought her nothing. About noon she was dressed and ready for the day. She must go out, of course. It would be folly to remain shut up indoors after all the bother of the journey. She must lunch somewhere, do something afterwards. There was a telephone in her bedroom. She knew lots of people in Paris. She might telephone to someone to join her at lunch at the Ritz or somewhere. Afterwards they might go to a matinee or to a concert. But she was afraid of getting immersed in engagements, of losing her freedom. She thought over her friends and acquaintances in Paris. Which of them would be the safest to communicate with? Which would be most useful to her, and would trouble her least? Finally she decided on telephoning to a rich American spinster whom she had known for years, a woman who was what is called "large minded," who was very tolerant, very understanding, and not more curious than a woman has to be. Caroline Briggs could comprehend a hint without demanding facts to explain it.

She telephoned to Caroline Briggs. Miss Briggs was at home and replied, expressing pleasure and readiness to lunch with Lady Sellingworth anywhere. After a moment's hesitation Lady Sellingworth suggested the Ritz. Miss Briggs agreed that the Ritz would be the best place.

They met at the Ritz at one o'clock.

Miss Briggs, a small, dark, elderly and animated person, immensely rich and full of worldly wisdom, wondered why Lady Sellingworth had come over to Paris, was told "clothes," and smilingly accepted the explanation. She knew Lady Sellingworth very well, and, being extremely sharp and intuitive, realized at once that clothes had nothing to do with this sudden visit. A voice within her said: "It's a man!"

And presently the man came into the restaurant, accompanied by the eternal old woman in the black wig.

Now Caroline Briggs had an enormous and cosmopolitan acquaintance. She was the sort of woman who knows wealthy Greeks, Egyptian pashas, Turkish princesses, and wonderful exotic personages from Brazil, Persia, Central America and the Indies. She gave parties which were really romantic, which had a flavour, as someone had said, of the novels of Ouida brought thoroughly up to date. Lady Sellingworth had been to some of them, and had not forgotten them. And it had occurred to her that if anyone she knew was acquainted with the brown man, that person might be Caroline Briggs. She had, therefore, come to the Ritz with a faint hope in her mind.

Miss Brigs happened to be seated with her smart back to the man and old woman when they entered the restaurant, and they sat down at a table behind her, but in full view of Lady Sellingworth, who wished to draw her companion's attention to them, but who also was reluctant to show any interest in them. She knew that Miss Briggs knew a great deal about her, and she did not mind that. But nevertheless, she felt at this moment a certain pudeur which was almost like the pudeur of a girl. Had it come to her with her entrance into the fifties? Or was it a cruel gift from her imp? She was not sure; but she could not persuade herself to draw Miss Briggs's attention to the people who interested her until the bill was presented and it was almost time to leave the restaurant.

Then at last she could keep silence no longer, and she said:

"The people one sees in Paris seem to become more and more extraordinary! Many of them one can't place at all."

Miss Briggs, who had lived in Paris for quite thirty years, remarked:

"Do you think they are more extraordinary than the people one sees about London?"

"Yes, really I do. That old woman in the black wig over there, for instance, intrigues me. Where can she come from? Who can she be?"

Miss Briggs looked carelessly round, and at once understood the reason of Lady Sellingworth's remarks. "The man" was before her, and she knew it. How? She could not have said. Had she been asked she would probably have replied: "My bones told me."

"Oh," she said, after the look. "She's the type of old woman who is born and brought up in Brazil, and who, when she is faded, comes to European spas for her health. I have met many of her type at Aix and Baden Baden."

"Ah!" replied Lady Sellingworth carelessly. "You don't know her then?"

"No. But I have seen her two or three times within the last few months—three times to be exact. Twice she has travelled in the same train as I was in, though not in the same compartment, and once I saw her dining here. Each time she was with that marvelously handsome young man. I really noticed her—don't blame me—because of him."

"Perhaps he's her son."

"He may be her husband."

"Oh—but the difference in their ages! She must be seventy at least, if not more."

"She may be very rich, too," said Miss Briggs dryly.

Lady Sellingworth remembered that it was always said that Miss Briggs's enormous fortune had kept her a spinster. She was generally supposed to be one of those unfortunately cynical millionairesses who are unable to believe in man's disinterested affection.

"Shall we go?" said Lady Sellingworth.

Miss Briggs assented, and they left the restaurant.

They spent the afternoon together at a matinee at the Opera Comique, and afterwards Miss Briggs came to tea at Lady Sellingworth's apartment. Not another word had been said about the two strangers, but Lady Sellingworth fully realized that Caroline Briggs had found her out. When her friend finally got up to go she asked Lady Sellingworth how long she intended to stay in Paris.

"Oh, only a day or two," Lady Sellingworth said. "I've got to see two or three dressmakers. Then I shall be off. I haven't told anyone that I am here. It didn't seem worth while."

"And you won't be dull all alone?"

"Oh, no, I am never dull. I love two or three days of complete rest now and then. One isn't made of cast iron, although some people seem to think one is, or at ay rate ought to be."

There was a tired sound in her voice as she said this, and Miss Briggs's small and sharp, but kind, eyes examined her face rather critically. But Miss Briggs only said:

"Come and dine with me to-morrow night in my house. I shall be quite alone."

"Thank you, Caroline."

She spoke rather doubtfully and paused. But finally she said:

"I will with pleasure. What time?"

"Half-past eight."

When Miss Briggs had gone Lady Sellingworth gave way to an almost desperate fit of despondency. She felt ashamed of herself, like a sensitive person found out in some ugly fault. She sat down, and almost for the first time in her life mentally she wrestled with herself.

Something, she did not quite know what, in Caroline Briggs's look, or manner, or surmised mental attitude that day, had gone home to her. And that remark, "He may be her husband," followed by, "she may be very rich, too," had dropped upon her like a stone.

It had never occurred to her that the old woman in the wig might be the young man's wife. But she now realized that it was quite possible.

She had always known, since she had known Caroline, that her friend was one of those few women who are wholly free from illusions. Miss Briggs had not only never fallen into follies; she had avoided natural joys. She had perhaps even been the slave of her self-respect. Never at all good-looking though certainly not ugly, she had been afraid of the effect of her wealth upon men. And because she was so rich she had never chosen to marry. She was possibly too much of a cynic, but she had always preserved her personal dignity. No one had ever legitimately laughed at her, and no one had ever had the chance of contemptuously pitying her. She must have missed a great deal, but now in middle-age she was surround by friends who respected her.

That was something.

And—Lady Sellingworth was sure of it—Caroline was not ravaged by the Furies who attack "foolish" middle-aged women.

What did Caroline Briggs think of her? What must she think?

Caroline knew well nearly all the members of the "old guard," and most of them were fond of her. She had never got in any woman's way with a man, and she was never condemnatory. So among women she was a very popular woman. Many people confided in her. Lady Sellingworth had never done this. But now she wished that she could bring herself to do it. Caroline must certainly know her horribly well. Perhaps she could be helped by Caroline.

She needed help, for she was abominably devoid of moral courage.

She did not quite know why at this particular moment she was overwhelmed by a feeling of degradation; she only knew that she was overwhelmed. She felt ashamed of being in Paris. She even compared herself with the horrible old woman in the wig, who, perhaps, had bought the brown man as she might have bought a big Newfoundland dog.

Fifty! Fifty! Fifty! It knelled in her ears. Caroline saw her as a woman of fifty. Perhaps everyone really saw her so. And yet—why had the man given her that strange look in Bond Street? Why had he wished her to come to Paris? She tried, with a really unusual sincerity, to find some other reason than the reason which had delighted her vanity. But she failed. Sincerely she failed.

And yet—was it possible?

She thought of giving up, of becoming like Caroline. It would be a great rest. But how empty her life would be. Caroline's life was a habit. But such a life for her would be an absolute novelty. No doubt Caroline's reward had come to her in middle-age. Middle-age was bringing something to her, Adela Sellingworth, which was certainly not a reward. One got what one earned. That was certain. And she had earned wages which she dreaded having paid to her.

She had a good brain, and she realized that if she had the moral courage she might—it was possible—be rewarded by a peace of mind such as she had never yet known. She was able as it were to catch a glimpse of a future in which she might be at ease with herself. It even enticed her. But something whispered to her, "It would be stagnation—death in life." And then she was afraid of it.

She spent the evening in miserable depression, not knowing what she could do. She distrusted and almost hated herself. And she could not decide whether or not on the morrow to give Caroline some insight into her state of mind.

On the following day she was still miserable, even tormented, and quite undecided as to what she was going to do.

She spent the morning at her dressmaker's, and walked, with her maid, in the Rue de la Paix. There she met a Frenchwoman whom she knew well, Madame de Gretigny, who begged her to come to lunch at her house in the Faubourg St. Honore. She accepted. What else could she do? After lunch she drove with her friend in the Bois. Then they dropped in to tea with some French mutual friends.

The usual Paris was gently beginning to take possession of her. What was the good of it all? What had she really expected of this visit? She had started from London with a crazy sense of adventure. And here she was plunged in the life of convention! Oh, for the freedom of a man! Or the stable content of a Caroline Briggs!

At moments she felt enraged.

She saw the crowds passing in the streets, women tripping along consciously, men—flaneurs—strolling with their well-known look of watchful idleness, and she felt herself to be one of life's prisoners. And she knew she would never again take hands with the Paris she had once known so well. Why was that? Because of something in herself, something irrevocable which had fixed itself in her with the years. She was changing, had changed, not merely in body, but in something else. She felt that her audacity was sinking under the influence of her diffidence. Suddenly it occurred to her that perhaps this sudden visit to Paris on the track of an adventure was the last strong effort of her audacity. How would it end? In a meek and ridiculous return to London after a lunch with Caroline Briggs, a dinner with Caroline, a visit to the Opera Comique with Caroline! That really seemed the probable conclusion of the whole business. And yet—and yet she still had a sort of queer under feeling that she was drawing near to a climax in her life, and that, when she did return to London, she would return a definitely changed woman.

At half-past eight that night she walked into Caroline's wonderful house in the Champs-Elysees.

During dinner the two women talked as any two women of their types might have talked, quite noncommittally, although, in a surface way, quite intimately. Miss Briggs was a creature full of tact, and was the last person in the world to try to force a confidence from anyone. She was also not given at any time to pouring out confidences of her own.

After dinner they sat in a little room which Miss Briggs had had conveyed from Persia to Paris. Everything in it was Persian. When the door by which it was entered had been shut there was absolutely nothing to suggest Europe to those within. A faint Eastern perfume pervaded this strange little room, which suggested a deep retirement, an almost cloistered seclusion. A grille in one of the walls drew the imagination towards the harem. It seemed that there must be hidden women over there beyond it. Instinctively one listened for the tinkle of childish laughter, for the distant plash of a fountain, for the shuffle of slippers on marble.

Lady Sellingworth admired this room, and envied her friend for possessing it. But that night it brought to her a thought which she could not help expressing.

"Aren't you terribly lonely in this house, Caroline?" she said. "It is so large and so wonderful that I should think it must make solitude almost a bodily shape to you. And this room seems to be in the very heart of the house. Do you ever sit here without a friend or guest?"

"Now and then, but not often at night," said Miss Briggs, with serene self-possession.

"You are an extraordinary woman!" said Lady Sellingworth.

"Extraordinary! Why?"

"Because you always seem so satisfied to live quite alone. I hate solitude. I'm afraid of it."

Suddenly she felt that she must be partially frank with her hostess.

"Is self-respect a real companion for a woman?" she said. "Can one sit with it and be contented? Does it repay a woman for all the sacrifices she has offered up to it? Is it worth the sacrifices? That's what I want to know."

"I dare say that depends on the woman's mental make up," replied Miss Briggs. "One woman, perhaps, might find that it was, another that it was not."

"Yes, we are all so different, so dreadfully different, one from another."

"It would be very much duller if we weren't."

"Even as it is life can be very dull."

"I should certainly not call your life dull," said Miss Briggs.

"Anyhow, it's dreadful!" said Lady Sellingworth, with sudden abandonment.

"Why is it dreadful?"

"Caroline, I was fifty a few days ago."

As Lady Sellingworth said this she observed her friend closely to see if she looked surprised. Miss Briggs did not look surprised. And she only said:

"Were you? Well, I shall be fifty-eight in a couple of months."

"You don't look it."

"Perhaps that's because I haven't looked young for the last thirty years."

"I hate being fifty. The difficulty with me is that my—my nature and my temperament don't match with my age. And that worries me. What is one to do?"

"Do you want me to advise you about something?"

"I think I do. But it's so difficult to explain. Perhaps there is a time to give up. Perhaps I have reached it. But if I do give up, what am I to do? How am I to live? I might marry again."

"Why not?"

"It would have to be an elderly man, wouldn't it?"

"I hope so."

"I—I shouldn't care to marry an elderly man. I don't want to."

"Then don't do it."

"You think if I were to marry a comparatively young man—"

She paused, looking almost pleadingly at the uncompromising Miss Briggs.

"I'm convinced of this, that no really normal young man could ever be contented long if he married a middle-aged woman. And what intelligent woman is happy with an abnormal man?"

"Caroline, you are so dreadfully frank!"

"I say just what I think."

"But you think so drastically. And you are so free from sentiment."

"What is called sentiment is very often nothing but what is described in the Bible as the lust of the eye."

This shaft, perhaps not intended to be a shaft, went home. Lady Sellingworth reddened and looked down.

"I dare say it is," she murmured. "But—no doubt some of us are more subject to temptation than others."

"I'm sure that is so."

"It's very difficult to give up deliberately nearly all that has made life interesting and attractive to you ever since you can remember. Caroline, would you advise me to—to abdicate? You know what I mean."

Miss Briggs's rather plain, but very intelligent, face softened.

"Adela, my dear," she said, "I understand a great deal more than you have cared to hint at to me."

"I know you do."

"I think that unless you change your way of life in time you are heading straight for tragedy. We both know a lot of women who try to defy the natural law. Many of them are rather beautiful women. But do you think they are happy women? I don't. I know they aren't. Youth laughs at them. I don't know what you feel about it, but I think I would rather be pelted with stones than be jeered at by youth in my middle age. Respect may sound a very dull word, but I think there's something very warm in it when it surrounds you as you get old. In youth we want love, of course, all of us. But in middle age we want respect too. And nothing else takes its place. There's a dignity of the soul, and women like us—I'm older than you, but still we are neither of us very young any longer—only throw it away at a terrible price. When I want to see tragedy I look at the women who try to hang on to what refuses to stay with them. And I soon have to shut my eyes. It's too painful. It's like looking at bones decked out with jewels."

Lady Sellingworth sat very still. There was a long silence between the two friends. When they spoke again they spoke of other things.

That night Lady Sellingworth told her maid to pack up, as she was returning to London by the morning express on the following day.

At the Gare du Nord there was the usual bustle. But there was not a great crowd of travellers for England, and Lady Sellingworth without difficulty secured a carriage to herself. Her maid stood waiting with the jewel-case while she went to the bookstall to buy something to read on the journey. She felt dull, almost miserable, but absolutely determined. She knew that Caroline was right. She thought she meant to take her advice. At any rate, she would not try to pursue the adventure which had lured her to Paris. How she would be able to live when she got home she did not know. But she would go home. It had been absurd, undignified of her to come to Paris. She would try to forget all about it.

She bought a book and some papers; then she walked to the train.

"Are you going to get in, my lady?" said the maid.

"Yes. You can put in the jewel-case."

The maid did so, and Lady Sellingworth got into the carriage and sat next to the window on the platform side, facing the engine, with the jewel-case beside her on the next seat. The corridor was between her and the platform. On the right, beyond the carriage door, the line was blocked by another train at rest in the station.

She sat still, not reading, but thinking. The maid went away to her second-class carriage.

Lady Sellingworth continued to feel very dull. Now that she was abandoning this adventure, or promise of adventure, she knew how much it had meant to her. It had lifted her out of the anger and depression in which she had been plunged by the Rupert Louth episode. It had appealed to her wildness, had given her new hope, something to look forward to, something that was food for her imagination. She had lived in an imagined future that was romantic, delicious and turbulent. Now she knew exactly how much she had counted on this visit to Paris as the door through which she would pass into a new and extraordinary romance. She had felt certain that something wonderful, something unconventional, bizarre, perhaps almost maddening, was going to happen to her in Paris.

And now—At this moment she became aware of some influence which drew her attention to the platform on her left. She had not seen anyone; she had simply felt someone. She turned her head and looked through the window of the corridor.

The brown man was on the platform alone, standing still and looking intently towards her carriage. Two or three people passed him. He did not move. She felt sure that he was waiting for her to get out, that this time he meant to speak to her.

In a moment all her good resolutions, all the worldly wise advice of Miss Briggs, all her dullness and despair were forgotten. The wildness that would not die surged up in her. Her vanity glowed. She had been wrong, utterly wrong. Miss Briggs had been wrong. Despite the difference between their ages, this man, young, strong, amazingly handsome, must have fallen in love with her at first sight. He must have—somehow—been watching her in Paris. He must have ascertained that she was leaving Paris that morning, have followed her to the station determined at all costs to have a word with her.

Should she let him have that word?

Just for an instant she hesitated. Then, almost passionately, she gave way to a turbulent impulse. She felt reckless. At that moment she was almost ready to let the train go without her. But there were still a few, a very few, minutes before the time for its departure. She got up, left the carriage, and stood in the corridor looking out of the window. Immediately the man slightly raised his hat, sent her a long and imploring look, and then moved slowly away down the platform in the direction of the entrance to it. She gazed after him. He paused, again raised his hat, and made a very slight, scarcely noticeable gesture with his hand. Then he remained where he was.

Saying to herself that she would certainly not obey his obvious wish and follow him, but would simply get out of the train and take a few breaths of air on the platform—as any woman might to while away the time—Lady Sellingworth made her way to the end of the corridor and descended to the platform. The brown man was still there, a little way off. Several people were hurrying to take their places in the train. Porters were carrying hand luggage, or wheeling trucks of heavy luggage to the railway vans. No one seemed to have any time to take notice of her or of the man. She did not look at him, but began slowly to stroll up and down, keeping near to her carriage. She had given him his chance. Now it was for him to take firm hold on it. She fully expected that he would come up and speak to her. She thrilled with excitement at the prospect. What would he say? How would he act? Would he explain why he had done nothing in Paris? Would he beg her to stay on in Paris? Would he ask to be allowed to visit her in London? Would he—But he did not come up to her.

After taking several short turns, keeping her eyes resolutely away from the place where he was standing, Lady Sellingworth could not resist the impulse to look towards him to see what he was doing. She lifted her eyes.

He was gone.

"En voiture!" cried a hoarse voice.

She stood still.

"En voiture! En voiture!"

Mechanically she moved. She went to her carriage, put her hand on the rail, mounted the steps, passing into the corridor, and reached her compartment just as the train began to move.

What had happened to him? What was the meaning of it all? Was he travelling to England too? Had he got into the train?

She sat down wondering, almost confused.

Mechanically she let her right hand drop on to the seat beside her. She was so accustomed when travelling to have her jewel-case beside her that her hand must have missed it though her thoughts were far from it. For immediately after dropping her hand she looked down.

The jewel-case was gone.

Instantly her feeling of confusion was swept away; instantly she understood.

She had been caught in a trap by a clever member of the swell mob operating with a confederate. While she had been on the platform, to which she had been deliberately enticed, the confederate had entered the compartment from the line, through the doorway on the right-hand side of her carriage, and had carried off the jewel-case.

The revelation of the truth almost stunned something in her. Yet she was able to think quite clearly. She did nothing. She just sat still and understood, and went on understanding, while the train quickened its pace on its way towards the sea.

By the time it slowed down, and the dull houses of Calais appeared, she had made up her mind about the future. Her vanity had received at last a mortal blow. The climax had come. It was not what she had expected, but her imp—less satirical now than desperately tragic and powerfully persuasive, told her that it was what she deserved. And she bowed her head to his verdict, not with tears, but with a cold and stormy sense of finality.

When the train stopped at the harbour station her maid appeared in the corridor.

"Shall I take the jewel-case, my lady?"

Lady Sellingworth stood up. She had not decided what to say to her maid. She was taken by surprise. As she stood, her tall figure concealed the seat on which the jewel-case had been lying. For an instant she looked at the maid in silence. Perhaps the expression of her face as strange, for after a pause the maid said anxiously:

"Whatever is it, my lady?"

"Never mind about the jewel-case!" said Lady Sellingworth.

"But—"

"It's gone!"

"Gone, my lady!" said the maid, looking aghast. "Gone where?"

"It was taken at the station in Paris."

"Taken, my lady! But it was in the carriage by the side of your ladyship! I never left it. I had it in my own hands till your ladyship—"

"I know—I know! Don't say anything more about it. It's gone, and we shall never see it again."

The maid stared, horrified, and scenting a mystery.

"Get that porter! Make haste!"

They got down from the train. Lady Sellingworth turned to make her way to the ship.

"But, my lady, surely we ought to speak to the police? All your beautiful jewels—"

"The police could do nothing. It is too late! I should only have endless trouble, and no good would come of it."

"But your ladyship was in the carriage with them!"

"Yes, I know! Now don't say any more about the matter!"

There was something in her tone which struck the maid to silence. She said not another word till they were on the ship.

Then Lady Sellingworth went to the cabin which she had telegraphed for.

"I am going to lie down," she said. "You can leave me."

"Yes, my lady."

After arranging things in the cabin the maid was about to go when Lady Sellingworth said:

"You have been with me a long time, Henderson. You have been very useful to me. And I think I have been a good mistress to you."

"Oh, yes, my lady, indeed you have. I would do anything for your ladyship."

"Would you? Then try to hold your tongue about this unfortunate occurrence. Talking can do no good. I shall not inform the police. The jewels are gone, and I shan't get them back. I have a great dislike of fuss and gossip, and only wish to be left in peace. If you talk, all this is sure to get into the papers. I should hate that."

"Yes, my lady. But surely the police—"

"It is my business, and no one else's, to decide what is best in this matter. So hold your tongue, if you can. You will not repent it if you do."

"Yes, my lady. Certainly, my lady."

The maid was obviously horrified and puzzled. But she left her mistress without another word.

They arrived in Berkeley Square in the evening.

That evening which Lady Sellingworth spent in solitude was the turning point in her life. During it and the succeeding night she went down to the bedrock of realization. She allowed her brains full liberty. Or they took full liberty as their right. The woman of the grey matter had it out with the woman of the blood. She stared her wildness in the face and saw it just as it was, and resolved once for all to dominate it for the rest of her days. She was not such a fool as to think that she could ever destroy it. No doubt it would always be there to trouble her, perhaps often to torture her. But rule her, as it had ruled her in the past, it never should again. Her resolve about that was hard, of a rock-like quality.

She had done with a whole side of life, and it was the side for which she had lived ever since she was a girl of sixteen. The renunciation was tremendous, devastating almost. She thought of a landslide carrying away villages, whole populations. How true had been the instinct which had told her that she was drawing near to a climax in her life! Had ever a woman before her been brought in a flash to such a cruel insight? It was as if a tideless sea, by some horrible miracle, retreated, leaving naked rocks which till that moment had never been seen by mortal eyes, hideous and grotesque rocks covered with slime and ooze.

And she stood alone, staring at them.

She remembered the dinner in her house at which there had been the discussion about happiness, and the desire of the old Anglo-Indian for complete peace of mind. Could a woman gain that mysterious benefit by giving up? Could such a thing ever be hers? She did not believe it. But she knew all the torture of striving. In her renunciation she would at least be able to rest, to rest in being frankly and openly what she was. And she knew she was tired. She was very tired. Perhaps some of the "old guard" were made of cast iron. But she was not.

The "old guard"! With the thought of that body of wonderful women came a flood of memories. She remembered "The Hags' Hop." She saw Rocheouart standing before her; Rupert Louth; other young men, all lively, handsome, ardent, bursting with life and the wish to enjoy.

Was there ever a time when the human being could utterly forego the wish to enjoy? To her there seemed to be hidden in desire seeds of eternity. The struggle for her, then, was not yet over. Perhaps it would only cease in the grave. And after? Sellingworth had often told her that there was no hereafter. And at the time she had believed him. But she was not sure now. For even the persistence of desire seemed to point to something beyond. But she would not bother about that. She was held fast enough in the present.

What would the "old guard" say of her, think of her, in a very short time? What a defection hers would be! For she had resolved to take a plunge into middle age. No gliding into it for her! She would let everything go which was ready to go naturally. Her Greek had already lost his job, although as yet he did not know it.

Caroline Briggs would believe that the change which was at hand, the change which would be discussed, perhaps laughed at, praised by some, condemned by others, had been brought about by the conversation in the Persian Room. She would never know the truth. No one of Lady Sellingworth's set would ever know it. For no one, except a thief and his underlings, knew of the last folly of poor old Adela Sellingworth!

Poor old Adela Sellingworth!

As Lady Sellingworth called herself bitterly by that name tears at last came into her luminous eyes. Secretly she wept over herself, although the tears did not fall down upon her cheeks. She had done many foolish things, many wild things, many almost crazy things in her life. But that day she had surely been punished for them all. When she thought of the thieves' plot against her, of the working out of it, she saw herself lying, like a naked thing, in the dust. Such men! How had they known her character? Somehow they must have got to know it, and devised their plan to appeal to it. They had woven just the right net to catch her in its folds. She seemed to hear their hideous discussions about her. The long look in Bond Street had been the first move in the horrible game. And she in her folly had connected the game with romance, with something like love even.

Love! A life such as hers had been was the prostitution of love, and now she deserved to be loveless for the rest of her life. Vanity and sensuality had been her substitutes for love. She had dealt in travesty and had pretended, even to herself, that she was following reality. It was amazing how she had managed to deceive herself.

She would never do that again.

Very late that night, alone in her bedroom, she sat before a mirror and looked into it, saying good-bye to the self which she had cherished and fostered so long, had lived for recklessly sometimes, ruthlessly almost always. She saw a worn, but still very handsome woman. But she told herself that the woman was hideous. For really she was looking at the woman underneath, the woman who was going to emerge very soon into the daylight with a frankly lined face crowned with grey or perhaps even white hair, at the woman who was the truth, at herself. This woman before her was only a counterfeit, a marvellously clever artificiality.

There were two electric lights at the sides of the mirror. She turned them both on. She wanted crude light just then. Cruelty she was taking to her bosom. She was grasping her nettle with both hands.

Yes, the artificiality was marvellously clever! The Greek had been worth his money. He had created a sort of human orchid whose petals showed few, wonderfully few, signs of withering.

But she had wanted to be not the orchid but really the rose. And so she was down in the dust.

Poor old Adela Sellingworth, who in a very short time—how long exactly would the Greek's work take to crumble—would look even older than fifty!

She turned out the lights presently and got into bed. When she had made the big bedroom dark, and had stretched her long body out between the sheets of Irish linen, she felt terrifically tired, tired in body and spirit, but somehow not in mind. Her mind was almost horribly alive and full of agility. It brought visions before her; it brought voices into her ears.

She saw men of the underworld sitting together in shadows and whispering about her, using coarse words, undressing her character, commenting upon it without mercy, planning how they would make use of it to their advantage. She heard them laughing about her and about all the women like her.

And presently she saw an old woman with a white face, a withered throat and vague eyes, an old woman in a black wig, smiling as she decked herself out in the Sellingworth jewels.

PART THREE

CHAPTER I

Miss Van Tuyn, enthroned among distinguished and definite Georgians in a nimbus of smoke, presently began to wonder what had become of a certain young man. Despite the clamour of voices about her, and the necessity for showing incessantly that, although she had never bothered to paint cubist pictures or to write minor poetry, or even to criticize and appreciate meticulously those who did, she was cleverer than any Georgian of them all, her mind would slip away to Berkeley Square. She had, of course, noted young Craven's tacit resistance to the pressure of her desire, and her girlish vanity had resented it. But she had remembered that even in these active days of the ruthless development of the ego a sense of politeness, of what is "due" from one human being to another, still lingers in some perhaps old-fashioned bosoms. Lady Sellingworth was elderly. Craven might have thought it was his absolute duty to protect her from the possible dangers lurking between Regent Street and Berkeley Square. But as time went on, despite the sallies of Dick Garstin, the bloodless cynicisms of Enid Blunt, who counted insolence as the chief of the virtues, the amorous sentimentalities of the Turkish refugee from Smyrna, whose moral ruin had been brought about by a few lines of praise from Pierre Loti, the touching appreciations of prison life by Penitence Murray, and the voluble intellectuality of Thapoulos, Jennings and Smith the sculptor, Miss Van Tuyn began to feel absent-minded. Her power of attraction was quite evidently being seriously challenged. She was now certain—how could she not be—that Craven had not merely gone to Number 18A, but had also "gone in."

That was unnecessary. It was even very strange. For she, Beryl Van Tuyn, was at least thirty-six years younger than Lady Sellingworth.

Miss Van Tuyn had an almost inordinate belief in the attraction youth holds for men. She had none of the hidden diffidence which had been such a troubling element in Lady Sellingworth's nature. Nor was there any imp which sat out of reach and mocked her. The violet eyes were satirical; but her satire was reserved for others, and was seldom or never directed against herself. She possessed a supply of self-assurance such as Lady Sellingworth had never had, though for many years she had had the appearance of it. Having this inordinate belief and this strong self-assurance, having also youth and beauty, and remembering certain little things which seemed to her proof positive that Craven was quite as susceptible to physical emotions as are most healthy and normal young men, she wondered why he had not returned to the Cafe Royal after leaving Lady Sellingworth decorously at her door. He had known perfectly well that she wished him to return. She had not even been subtle in conveying the wish to him. And yet he had defied it.

Or perhaps Lady Sellingworth had defied it for him.

Miss Van Tuyn was really as fond of Lady Sellingworth as she could be of a woman. She felt strongly the charm which so many others had felt. Lady Sellingworth also interested her brain and aroused strongly the curiosity which was a marked feature of her "make-up." She had called Lady Sellingworth a book of wisdom. She was also much influenced by distinction and personal prestige. About the distinction of her friend there could be no doubt; and the prestige of a once-famous woman of the world, and of a formerly great beauty whose name would have its place in the annals of King Edward the Seventh, still lingered about the now-faded recluse of Berkeley Square. But till this moment Miss Van Tuyn had never thought of Lady Sellingworth as a possible rival to herself.

Even now when the idea presented itself to her she was inclined to dismiss it as too absurd for consideration. And yet Craven had not come back, although he must know she was expecting him.

Perhaps Lady Sellingworth had made him go in against his will.

Miss Van Tuyn remembered the photograph she had seen at Mrs. Ackroyd's. That woman had the face of one who was on the watch for new lovers. And does a woman ever change? Only that very night she herself had said to Craven, as they walked from Soho to Regent Street, that she had a theory of the changelessness of character. Or perhaps she had really meant of temperament. She had even said that she believed that the Lady Sellingworth of to-day was to all intents and purposes the Lady Sellingworth of yesterday and of the other days of her past. If that were so—and she had meant what she had said—then in the white-haired woman, who seemed now indifferent to admiration and leagues removed from vanity, there still dwelt a woman on the pounce.

Young Craven was very good-looking, and there was something interesting about his personality. His casual manner, which was nevertheless very polite, was attractive. His blue eyes and black hair gave him an almost romantic appearance. He was very quiet, but was certainly far from being cold. And he undoubtedly understood a great deal, and must have had many experiences of which he never talked. Miss Van Tuyn was subtle enough to know that he was subtle too. She had made up her mind to explore his subtlety. And now someone else was exploring it in Berkeley Square. The line reappeared in her low white forehead, and her cult for Lady Sellingworth, like flannel steeped in water, underwent a shrinking process. She felt strongly the indecency of grasping old age. And through her there floated strange echoes of voices which had haunted Lady Sellingworth's youth, voices which had died away long ago in Berkeley Square, but which are captured by succeeding generations of women, and which persist through the ages, finding ever new dwellings.

The night was growing late, but the Georgians bitterly complained of the absurdity of London having a closing time. The heat and the noise seemed to swell with the passing of the hours, and a curious and anemic brutality dawned with the midnight upon many of the faces around the narrow tables. They looked at the same time bloodless and hard. Eyes full of languor, or feverish with apparent expectation of some impending adventure, stared fixedly through the smoke wreaths at other eyes in the distance. Loud voices hammered through the murk. Foreheads beaded with perspiration began to look painfully expressive. It was as if all faces were undressed.

Dick Garstin, the famous painter, a small, slight, clean-shaven man, who looked like an intellectual jockey with his powerful curved nose, thin, close-set lips, blue cheeks and prominent, bony chin, and who fostered the illusion deliberately by dressing in large-checked suits of a sporting cut, with big buttons and mighty pockets, kept on steadily drinking green chartreuse and smoking small, almost black, cigars. He was said to be made of iron, and certainly managed to combine perpetual dissipation with an astonishing amount of hard and admirable work. His models he usually found—or so he said—at the Cafe Royal, and he made a speciality of painting the portraits of women of the demi-monde, of women who drank, or took drugs, who were morphia maniacs, or were victims of other unhealthy and objectionable crazes. Nothing wholly sane, nothing entirely normal, nothing that suggested cold water, fresh air or sunshine, made any appeal to him. A daisy in the grass bored him; a gardenia emitting its strangely unreal perfume on a dung heap brought all his powers into play. He was an eccentric of genius, and in his strangeness was really true to himself, although normal people were apt to assert that his unlikeness to them was a pose. Simplicity, healthy goodness, the radiance of unsmirched youth seemed to his eyes wholly inexpressive. He loved the rotten as a dog loves garbage, and he raised it by his art to fascination. Even admirable people, walking through his occasional one-man exhibitions, felt a lure in his presentations of sin, of warped womanhood, and, gazing at the blurred faces, the dilated eyes, the haggard mouths, the vicious hands of his portraits, were shiveringly conscious of missed experiences, and for the moment felt ill at ease with what seemed just there, and just then, the dullness of virtue. The evil admired him because he made evil wonderful. To the perverse he was almost as a god.

Miss Van Tuyn was an admirer of Dick Garstin. She thought him a great painter, but apart from his gift his mind interested her intensely. He had a sort of melancholy understanding of human nature and of life, a strangely sure instinct in probing to the bottom of psychological mysteries, a cruelly sure hand in tearing away the veils which the victims hoped would shroud their weaknesses and sins. These gifts made her brain respect him, and tickled her youthful curiosity. It was really for Dick that she had specially wished Lady Sellingworth to join the Georgians that night. And now, in her secret vexation, she was moved to speak of the once famous Edwardian.

"Have you ever heard of Lady Sellingworth?" she said, leaning her elbow on the marble table in front of her, and bending towards Dick Garstin so that he might hear her through the uproar.

He finished one more chartreuse and turned his small black eyes upon her. Pin-points of piercing light gleamed in them. He lifted his large, coarse and capable painter's hand to his lips, put his cigar stump between them, inhaled a quantity of smoke, blew it out through his hairy nostrils, and then said in a big bass voice:

"Never. Why should I have? I hate society women."

Miss Van Tuyn suppressed a smile at the absurd and hackneyed phrase, which reminded her of picture papers. For a moment she thought of Dick Garstin as a sort of inverted snob. But she wanted something from him, so she pursued her conversational way, and inflicted upon him a rapid description of Lady Sellingworth, as she had been and as she was, recording the plunge from artificial youth into perfectly natural elderliness which had now, to her thinking, become definite old age.

The painter gave her a sort of deep and melancholy attention, keeping the two pin-points of light directed steadily upon her.

"Did you ever know a woman doing such a thing as that, Dick?" she asked. "Did you ever know of a woman clinging to her youth, and then suddenly, in a moment, flinging all pretence of it away from her?"

He did not trouble, or perhaps did not choose, to answer her question, but instead made the statement:

"She had been thrown off by some lover. In a moment of furious despair, thinking all was over for her for ever, she let everything go. And then she hadn't the cheek to try to take any of it back. She hadn't the toupet. But"—he flung a large hand stained with pigments out in an ugly, insolent gesture—"any one of these fleurs du mal would have jumped back from the white to the bronze age when the fit was passed, without caring a damn what anyone thought of them. All the moral bravery is in the underworld. That is why I paint it."

"That is absolute truth," said Jennings, who was sitting next to Dick Garstin and smoking an enormous pipe. "The lower you go the more truth you find."

"Then I suppose the gutter is full of it," said Miss Van Tuyn.

"The Cafe Royal is," said Garstin. "There are free women here. Your women of society are for ever waiting on the opinion of what they call their set—God help them! Your Lady Sellingworth, for instance—would she dare, after showing herself as an old woman, to become a young woman again? Not she! Her precious set would laugh at her for it. But Cora, for instance—" He pointed to a table a little way off, at which a woman was sitting alone. "Do you suppose Cora cares one single damn what you, or I, or anyone else thinks of her? She knows we all know exactly what she is, and it makes not a particle of difference to her. She'll tell you, or anyone else, what her nature is. If you don't happen to like it, you can go to Hell—for her. That's a free woman. Look at her face. Why, it's great, because her life and what she is is written all over it. I've painted her, and I'll paint her again. She's a human document, not a sentimental Valentine. Waiter! Waiter!"

His sonorous bass rolled out, dominating the uproar around him. Miss Van Tuyn looked at the woman he had been speaking of. She was tall, emaciated, high shouldered. Her face was dead white, with brightly painted lips. She had dark and widely dilated eyes which looked hungry, observant and desperate. The steadiness of their miserable gaze was like that of an animal. She was dressed in a perfectly cut coat and skirt with a neat collar and a black tie. Both her elbows were on the table, and her sharp white chin was supported by her hands, on which she wore white gloves sewn with black. Her features were good, and the shape of her small head was beautiful. Her expression was intense, but abstracted. In front of her was a small tumbler half full of a liquid the colour of water.

A waiter brought Garstin a gin-and-soda. He mixed drinks in an almost stupefying way, as few men can without apparent ill-effects unless they are Russians.

"Cora—a free woman, by God!" he observed, lighting another of his small but deadly cigars.

Enid Blunt, who was sitting with Smith the sculptor and others at the adjoining table, began slowly, and with an insolent drawl, reciting a sonnet. She was black as the night. Even her hands looked swarthy. There were yellow lights in her eyes. Her voice was guttural, and she pronounced English with a strong German accent, although she had no German blood in her veins and had never been in Germany. The little Bolshevik, who had the face of a Russian peasant, candid eyes and a squat figure, listened with an air of profound and somehow innocent attention. She possessed neither morals nor manners, denied the existence of God, and wished to pull the whole fabric of European civilization to pieces. Her small brain was obsessed by a desire for anarchy. She hated all laws and was really a calmly ferocious little animal. But she looked like a creature of the fields, and had something of the shepherdess in her round grey eyes. Thapoulos, a Levantine, who had once been a courier in Athens, but who was now a rich banker with a taste for Bohemia, kept one thin yellow hand on her shoulder as he appeared to listen, with her, to the sonnet. Smith, with whom the little Bolshevik was allied for the time, and who did in clay very much what Garstin did on canvas, but more roughly and with less subtlety, looked at the Levantine's hand with indifference. A large heavy man, with square shoulders and short bowed legs, he scarcely knew why he had anything to do with Anna, or remembered how they had come together. He did not understand her at all, but she cooked certain Russian dishes which he liked, and minded dirt as little as he did. Perhaps that lack of minding had thrown them together. He did no know; nobody knew or cared.

"Well, I'm a free woman," said Miss Van Tuyn, in answer to Garstin's exclamation about Cora. "But you've never bothered to paint me."

She spoke with a touch of irritation. Somehow things seemed to be going vaguely wrong for her to-night.

"I suppose I am not near enough to the gutter yet," she added.

"You're too much of the out-of-door type for me," said Garstin, looking at her with almost fierce attention. "There isn't a line about you except now and then in your forehead just above the nose. And even that only comes from bad temper."

"Really, Dick," said Miss Van Tuyn, "you are absurd. It's putting your art into a strait waistcoat only to paint Cafe Royal types. But if you want lines Lady Sellingworth ought to sit for you."

Her mind that night could not detach itself from Lady Sellingworth. In the midst of the noise, and crush, and strong light of the cafe she continually imagined a spacious, quiet, and dimly lit room, very calm, very elegant, faintly scented with flowers; she continually visualized two figures near together, talking quietly, earnestly, confidentially. Why had she allowed Jennings to lead her astray? She might have been in that spacious room, too, if she had not been stupid.

"I want to ask you something about Lady Sellingworth," she continued. "Come a little nearer."

Garstin shifted his chair.

"But I don't know her," he said, rumpling his hair with an air of boredom. "An old society woman! What's the good of that to me? What have I to do with dowagers? Bow wow dowagers! Even Rembrandt—"

"Now, Dick, don't be a bore! If you would only listen occasionally, instead of continually—"

"Go ahead, young woman! And bend down a little more. Why don't you take off your hat?"

"I will."

She did so quickly, and bent her lovely head nearer to him.

"That's better. You've got a damned fine head. Ceres might have owned it. But classical stuff is no good to me. You ought to have been painted by Leighton and hung on the line in the precious old Royal Academy."

Again the tell-tale mark appeared above the bridge of Miss Van Tuyn's charming nose.

"I painted by a Royal Academician!" she exclaimed. "Thank you, Dick!"

Garstin, who was as mischievous as a monkey, and who loved to play cat and mouse with a woman, continued to gaze at her with his assumption of fierce attention.

"But Leighton being unfortunately dead, we can't go to him for your portrait," he continued gravely. "I think we shall have to hand you over to McEvoy. Smith!" he suddenly roared.

"Well, what is it, Dick, what is it?" said the sculptor in a thin voice, with high notes which came surprisingly though the thicket of tangled hair about the cavern of his mouth.

"Who shall paint Beryl as Ceres?"

"I refuse to be pained by anyone as Ceres!" said Miss Van Tuyn, almost viciously.

"It ought to have been Leighton. But he's been translated. I suggested McEvoy."

"Oh, Lord! He'd take the substance out of her, make her transparent!"

"I have it then! Orpen! It shall be Orpen! Then she will be hung on the line."

"You talk as if I were the week's washing," said Miss Van Tuyn, recovering herself. "But I would rather be on the clothes-line than on the line at the Royal Academy. No, Dick, I shall wait."

"What for, my girl?"

"For you to get over your acute attack of Cafe Royal. You don't know how they laugh at you in Paris for always painting morphinomanes and chloral drinkers. That sort of thing was done to death in France in the youth of Degas. It may be new over here. But England always lags behind in art, always follows at the heels of the French. You are too big a man—"

"I've got it, Smith," said Garstin, interrupting in the quiet even voice of one who had been indulging an undisturbed process of steady thought, and who now announced the definite conclusion reached. "I have it. Frank Dicksee is the man!"

At this moment Jennings, who for some time had been uneasily groping through his beard, and turning the rings round and round on his thin damp fingers, broke in with a flood of speech about modern French art, in which names of all the latest painters of Paris spun by like twigs on a spate of turbulent water. The Georgians were soon up and after him in full cry. It was now nearly closing time, and several friends of Garstin's, models and others, who had been scattered about in the cafe, and who were on their way out, stopped to hear what was going on. Some adherents of Jennings also came up. The discussion became animated. Voices waxed roaringly loud or piercingly shrill. The little Bolshevik, suddenly losing her round faced calm and the shepherdess look in her eyes, burst forth in a voluble outcry in praise of the beauty of anarchy, expressing herself in broken English, spoken with a cockney accent, in broken French and liquid Russian. Enid Blunt, increasingly guttural, and mingling German words with her Bedford Park English, refuted, or strove to refute, Jennings's ecstatic praise of French verse, citing rapidly poems composed by members of the Sitwell group, songs of Siegfried Sassoon, and even lyrics by Lady Margaret Sackville and Miss Victoria Sackville West. Jennings, who thought he was still speaking about pictures and statues, though he had now abandoned the painters and sculptors to their horrid fates in the hands of Garstin and Smith, replied with a vivacity rather Gallic than British, and finally, emerging almost with passion from his native language, burst into the only tongue which expresses anything properly, and assailed his enemy in fluent French. Thapoulos muttered comments in modern Greek. And the Turkish refugee from Smyrna quoted again and again the words of praise from Pierre Loti, which had made of him a moral wreck, a nuisance to all who came into contact with him, a mere prancing megalomaniac.

Miss Van Tuyn did not join in the carnival of praises and condemnations. She had suddenly recovered her mental balance. Her native irony was roused from its sleep. She was once more the cool, self-possessed and beautiful girl from whose violet eyes satire looked out on all those about her.

"Let them all make fools of themselves for my benefit," was her comfortable thought as she listened to the chatter of tongues.

Even Garstin was being thoroughly absurd, although his adherents stood round catching his vociferations as if they were so many precious jewels.

"The most ridiculous human beings in the world at certain moments are those who work in the arts," was Miss Van Tuyn's mental comment. "Painters, poets, composers, novelists! All these people are living in blinkers. They can't see the wide world. They can only see studies and studios."

She wished she had Craven with her to share in her silent irony. At that moment she felt some of the very common conceit of the rich dilettante, who tastes but who never creates, for whom indeed most of the creation is arduously accomplished.

"They sweat for me, exhaust themselves for me, tear each other to pieces for me! If I were not here, if the world contained no such products as Beryl Van Tuyn and her like, female and male, what would all the Garstins, and Jenningses and Smiths and Enid Blunts do?"

And she felt superior in her incapacity to create because of her capacity to judge. Wrongly she might, and probably did, judge, but she and her like judged, spent much of their lives in eagerly judging. And the poor creators, whatever they might say, whatever airs they might give themselves, toiled to gain the favourable judgment of the innumerable Beryl Van Tuyns.

Closing time put an end at last to the fracas of tongues. Even geniuses must be driven forth from the electric light to the stars, however unwilling to go into a healthy atmosphere.

There was a general movement. Miss Van Tuyn put on her hat and fur coat, the latter with the assistance of Jennings. Garstin slipped into a yellow and brown ulster, and jammed a soft hat on to his head with its thick tangle of hair. He lit another cigar and waved his hand to Cora, who was on her way out with a friend.

"A free woman—by God!" he said once more, swinging round to where Miss Van Tuyn was standing between Jennings and Thapoulos. "I'll paint her again. I'll make a masterpiece of her."

"I'm sure you will. But now walk with me to the Hyde Park Hotel. It's on your way to Chelsea."

"She doesn't care whether I paint her or not. Cora doesn't care. Art means nothing to her. She's out for life, hunks of life. She's after life like a hungry dog after the refuse on a scrap heap. That's why I'll paint her. She's hungry. Look at her face."

Miss Van Tuyn, perhaps moved by the sudden, almost ferocious urgency of his loud bass voice, turned to have a last look at the woman who was "out for life"; but Cora was already lost in the crowd, and instead of gazing into the dead-white face which suggested to her some strange putrefaction, she gazed full into the face of a man. He was not far off—by the doorway through which people were streaming out into Regent Street—and he happened to be looking at her. She had been expecting to see a whiteness which was corpse-like. Instead she was almost startled by the sight of a skin which suggested to her one of her own precious bronzes in Paris. It was certainly less deep in colour, but its smooth and equal, unvarying tint of brown somehow recalled to her those treasures which she genuinely loved and assiduously collected. And he was marvellously handsome as some of her bronzes were handsome, with strong, manly, finely cut features—audacious features, she thought. His mouth specially struck her by its full-lipped audacity. He was tall and had an athletic figure. She could not help swiftly thinking what a curse the modern wrappings of such a figure were; the tubes of cloth or serge—he wore blue serge—the unmeaning waistcoat with tie and pale-blue collar above it, the double-breasted jacket. And then she saw his eyes. Magnificent eyes, she thought them, soft, intelligent, appealing, brown like his skin and hair. And they were gazing at her with a sort of sympathetic intention.

Suddenly she felt oddly restored. Really she had had a bad evening. Things had not gone quite right for her. She had saved the situation in a measure just at the end by taking refuge in irony. But in her irony she had been quite alone. And to be quite alone in anything is apt to be dull. Craven had let her down. Lady Sellingworth had not played the game—or had played it too well, which was worse. Garstin had been unusually tiresome with his allusions to the Royal Academy and his preposterous concentration on the Cora woman.

This brown stranger's gaze was really like manna falling from heaven in a hungry land. She boldly returned the gaze, stared, trusting to her own beauty. And as she stared she tried to sum up the stranger, and failed. She guessed him a little over thirty, but not much. And there somehow, after the quick, instinctive guess at his age, she stuck.

"Come on, Beryl!"

Garstin's deep strong voice startled her. At that moment she felt angry with him for calling her by her Christian name, though he had done it ever since they had first made friends—if they were friends—in Paris two years ago, when he had come to have a look at her bronzes with a French painter whom she knew well.

"You are going to walk back with me?"

"To be sure I am. He is devilish good looking, but he ought to be out of those clothes."

"Dick!"

He smiled at her sardonically. She knew that he seldom missed anything, but his sharp observation in the midst of the squash of people going out of the cafe took her genuinely aback. And then he had got at her thought, at one of her most definite thoughts at least, about the brown stranger!

"You are disgustingly clever," she said, as they made their way out, followed by the Georgians and their attendant cosmopolitans. "I believe I dislike you for it to-night."

"Then take a cab home and I'll walk."

"No, thank you. I'd rather endure your abominable intelligence."

He smiled, curling up the left corner of his sensual mouth.

"Come on then. Don't bother about good-byes to all these fools. They'll never stop talking if they once begin good-bying. Like sheep they don't know how to get away from each other since they've been herded together. Come on! Come on!"

He thrust an arm through hers and almost roughly, but forcibly, got her away through the throng. As he did so she was pushed by, or accidentally pushed against, several people. For a brief instant she was in contact with a man. She felt his side, the bone of one of his hips. It was the man who had looked at her in the cafe. She saw in the night the gleam of his big brown eyes looking down into hers. Then she and Garstin were tramping—Garstin always seemed to be tramping when he walked—over the pavement of Regent Street.

"Catch on tight! Let's get across and down to Piccadilly."

"Very well."

Presently they were passing the Ritz. They got away from the houses on that side. Now on their left were the tall railings that divided them from the stretching spaces of the Park shrouded in the darkness and mystery of night.

"Well, my girl, what are you after?" said Garstin, who never troubled about the conventionalities, and seemed never to care what anyone thought of him and his ways. "Go ahead. Let me have it. I'm not coming in to your beastly hotel, you know. So get on with your bow wow Dowager."

"So you remember that I had begun—"

"Of course I do."

"Do you ever miss anything—let anything escape you?"

"I don't know. Well, what is it?"

"I wanted to tell you something about Lady Sellingworth which has puzzled me and a friend of mine. It is a sort of social mystery."

"Social! Oh, Lord!"

"Now, Dick, don't be a snob. You are a snob in your pretended hatred of all decent people."

"D'you call your society dames decent?"

"Be quiet if you can! You're worse than a woman."

He did not say anything. His horsey profile looked hard and expressionless in the night. As she glanced at it she could not help thinking of Newmarket. He ought surely to have been a jockey with that face and figure.

"You are listening?"

He said nothing. But he turned his face and she saw the two pin-points of light. That was enough. She told him about the theft of Lady Sellingworth's jewels, her neglect of all endeavour to recover them, her immediate plunge into middle-age after the theft, and her avoidance of general society ever since.

"What do you make of it?" she asked, when she had finished.

"Make of it?"

"Yes."

"Does your little mind find it mysterious?"

"Well, isn't it rather odd for a woman who loses fifty thousand pounds' worth of jewels never to try to get them back?"

"Not if they were stolen by a lover."

"You think—"

"It's as obvious as that Martin, R.A., can't paint and I can."

"But I believe they were stolen at the Gare du Nord. Now does that look like a lover?"

"I didn't say the Gare du Nord looked like a lover."

"Don't be utterly ridiculous."

"I don't care where they were stolen—your old dowager's Gew-gaws. Depend upon it they were stolen by some man she'd been mixed up with, and she knew it, and didn't dare to prosecute. I can't see any mystery in the matter."

"Perhaps you are right."

"Of course I am right."

Miss Van Tuyn said nothing for two or three minutes. Her mind had gone from Lady Sellingworth to Craven, and then flitted on—she did not know why—to the man who had gazed at her so strangely in the Cafe Royal. She had been feeling rather neglected, badly treated almost, and his look had restored her to her normal supreme self-confidence. That fact would always be to the stranger's credit. She wondered very much who he was. His good looks had almost startled her. She began also to wonder what Garstin had thought of him. Garstin seldom painted men. But he did so now and then. Two of his finest portraits were of men: one a Breton fisherman who looked like an apache of the sea, the other a Spanish bullfighter dressed in his Sunday clothes with the book of the Mass in his hand. Miss Van Tuyn had seen them both. She now found herself wishing that Garstin would paint a portrait of the man who had looked at her. But was he a Cafe Royal type? At present Garstin painted nothing which did not come out of the Cafe Royal.

"That man—" she said abruptly.

"I was just wondering when we should get to him!" interjected Garstin. "I thought your old dowager wouldn't keep us away from him for long."

"I suppose you know by this time, Dick, that I don't care in the least what you think of me."

"The only reason I bother about you is because you are a thoroughly independent cuss and have a damned fine head."

"Why don't you paint me?"

"I may come to it. But if I do I'm mortally afraid they'll make an academician of me. Go on about your man."

"Didn't you think him a wonderful type?"

"Yes."

"Tell me! If you want to paint someone, what do you do?"

"Do? Go up and tell him or her to come along to the studio."

"Whether you know them or not?"

"Of course."

"You ought to paint that man."

"Just because you want me to pick hum up and then introduce him to you. I don't paint for reasons of that kind."

"Have you ever seen him before to-night?"

"Yes. I saw him last night."

"For the first time?"

"Yes."

"At the Cafe Royal?"

"Yes."

"What do you think he is?"

"Probably a successful blackmailer."

For some obscure reason Miss Van Tuyn felt outraged by this opinion of Garstin.

"The fact is," she said, but in quite an impersonal voice, "that your mind is getting warped by living always among the scum of London, and by studying and painting only the scum. It really is a great pity. A painter ought to be a man of the world, not a man of the underworld."

"And the a propos of all this?" asked Garstin

"You are beginning to see the morphia maniac, the drunkard, the cocaine fiend, the prostitute, the—"

"Blackmailer?"

"Yes, the blackmailer, if you like, in everyone you meet. You live in a sort of bad dream, Dick. You paint in a bad dream. If you go on like this you will lose all sense of the true values."

"But I honestly do believe the man you want me to pick up and then introduce to you to be a successful blackmailer."

"Why? Do you know anything about him?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Then your supposition about him is absurd and rather disgusting."

"It isn't a supposition."

"What is it then?"

"Perhaps you don't realize, my girl, that I'm highly sensitive."

"You seldom seem so. But, of course, I realize that you couldn't paint as you do unless you were."

"Instead of using the word supposition in connexion with a fellow like myself your discrimination should have led you to choose the word instinct."

"Oh?"

"Let's cross over. Catch on!"

They crossed to the side of the road next to Hyde Park.

"My instinct tells me that the magnificently handsome man who stared at you to-night is of the tribe that lives by making those who are indiscreetly susceptible to beauty pay heavy tribute, in hard cash or its equivalent. He is probably a king in the underworld. Perhaps I really will paint him. No, I'm not coming in."

He left her on the doorstep of the hotel and tramped off towards Chelsea.

CHAPTER II

Craven went away from Berkeley Square that night still under the spell and with a mind unusually vivid and alive. As he had told Lady Sellingworth, he was now twenty-nine and no longer considered himself young. At the F.O. there are usually a good many old young men, just as in London society there are always a great many young old women. Craven was one of the former. He was clever, discreet and careful in his work. He was also ambitious and intended to rise in the career he had chosen. To succeed he knew that energy was necessary, and consequently he was secretly energetic. But his energy did not usually show above the surface. Tradition rather forbade that. He had a quiet, even a lazy manner as a rule, and he thought he often felt old, especially in London. There was something in the London atmosphere which he considered antagonistic to youth. He had felt decades younger in Naples in summer-time. But that was all over now. It might be a long time before he was again attached to an embassy.

When he reached his rooms, or, rather, his flat, which was just off Curzon Street, he went to look at his bookshelves, and ran his finger along them until he came to the poems of William Watson, which were next to Rupert Brooke's poems. After looking at the index he found the lyric he wanted, sat down, lit his pipe, and read it four times, thinking of Lady Sellingworth. Then he put away the book and meditated. Finally—it was after one o'clock—he went almost reluctantly to bed.

In the morning he, of course, felt different—one always feels different in the morning—but nevertheless he was aware that something definite had come into his life which had made a change in it. This something was his acquaintance with Lady Sellingworth. Already he found it difficult to believe that he had lived for twenty-eight years without knowing her.

He was one of those rather unusual young men who feel strongly the vulgarity of their own time, and who have in them something which seems at moments to throw back into the past. Not infrequently he felt that this mysterious something was lifting up the voice of the laudator temporis acti. But what did he, the human being who contained this voice and many other voices, know of those times now gone? They seemed to draw him in ignorance, and had for him something of the fascination which attaches to the unknown. And this fascination, or something akin to it, hung about Lady Sellingworth, and even about the house in which she dwelt, and drew him to both. He knew that he had never been in any house in London which he liked so much as he liked hers, that in no other London house had he ever felt so much at home, so almost curiously in place. The mere thought of the hall with its blazing fire, its beehive-chair, its staircase with the balustrade of wrought ironwork and gold, filled him with a longing to return to it, to hang up his hat—and remain. And the lady of the house was ideally right in it. He wondered whether in the future he would often be there, whether Lady Sellingworth would allow him to be one of the few real intimates to whom her door was open. He hoped so; he believed so; but he was not quite certain about it. For there was something elusive about her, not insincere but just that—elusive. She might not care to see very much of him although he knew that she liked him. They had touched the fringe of intimacy on the preceding night.

After his work at the Foreign Office was over he walked to the club, and the first man he saw on entering it was Francis Braybrooke just back from Paris. Braybrooke was buying some stamps in the hall, and greeted Craven with his usual discreet cordiality.

"I'll come in a moment," he said. "If you're not busy we might have a talk. I shall like to hear how you fared with Adela Sellingworth."

Craven begged him to come, and in a few minutes they were settled in two deep arm-chairs in a quiet corner, and Craven was telling of his first visit to Berkeley Square.

"Wasn't I right?" said Braybrooke. "Could Adela Sellingworth ever be a back number? I think that was your expression."

Craven slightly reddened.

"Was it?"

"I think so," said Braybrooke, gently but firmly.

"I was a—a young fool to use it."

"I fancy it's a newspaper phrase that has pushed its way somehow into the language."

"Vulgarity pushes its way in everywhere now. Braybrooke, I want to thank you very much for your introduction to Lady Sellingworth. You were right. She has a wonderful charm. It's a privilege for a young man, as I am I suppose, to know her. To be with her makes life seem more what it ought to be, what one wants it to be."

Braybrooke looked extremely pleased, almost touched.

"I am glad you appreciate her," he said. "It shows that real distinction has still a certain appeal. And so you met Beryl Van Tuyn there."

"Do you know her?"

Braybrooke raised his eyebrows.

"Know her? How should I not know her when I am constantly running over to Paris?"

"Then I suppose she's very much 'in it' there?"

"Yes. She is criticized, of course. She lives very unconventionally, although Fanny Cronin is always officially with her."

"Fanny Cronin?"

"Her dame de compagnie."

"Oh, the lady who reads Paul Bourget!"

"I believe she does. Anyhow, one seldom sees her about. Beryl Van Tuyn is very audacious. She does things that no other lovely girl in her position would ever dare to do, or could do without peril to her reputation. But somehow she brings them off. Mind, I haven't a word to say against her. She is exceedingly clever and has mastered the difficult art of making people accept from her what they wouldn't accept for a moment from any other unmarried girl in society. She may be said to have a position of her own. Do you like her?"

"Yes, I think I do. She is lovely and very good company."

"Frenchmen rave about her."

"And Frenchwomen?"

"Oh, they all know her. She carries things through. That really is the art of life, to be able to carry things through. Her bronzes are quite remarkable. By the way, she has an excellent brain. She cares for the arts. She is by no means a fribble. I have been surprised by her knowledge more than once."

"She seems very fond of Lady Sellingworth. She wants to get her over to Paris."

"Adela Sellingworth won't go."

"Why not?"

"She seems to hate Paris now. It is years since she had stayed there."

After a pause Craven said:

"Lady Sellingworth is something of a mystery, I think. I wonder—I wonder if she feels lonely in that big house of hers."

"Far more people feel lonely than seem lonely," said Braybrooke.

"I expect they do. But I think that somehow Lady Sellingworth seems lonely. And yet she is full of mockery."

"Mockery?"

"Yes. I feel it."

"But didn't you find her very kind?"

"Oh, yes. I meant of self-mockery."

Braybrooke looked rather dubious.

"I think," continued Craven, perhaps a little obstinately, "that she looks upon herself with irony, while Miss Van Tuyn looks upon others with irony. Perhaps, though, that is rather a question of the different outlooks of youth and age."

"H'm?"

Braybrooke pulled at his grey-and-brown beard.

"I scarcely see—I scarcely see, I confess, why age should be more disposed to self-mockery than youth. Age, if properly met and suitably faced—that is, with dignity and self-respect, such as Adela Sellingworth undoubtedly shows—has no reason for self-mockery; whereas youth, although charming and delightful might well laugh occasionally at its own foolishness."

"Ah, but it never does!"

"I think for once I shall have a cocktail," said Braybrooke, signing to an attendant in livery, who at that moment came from some hidden region and looked around warily.

"You will join me, Craven? Let it be dry Martinis. Eh? Yes! Two dry Martinis."

As the attendant went away Braybrooke added:

"My dear boy, if you will excuse me for saying so, are you not getting the Foreign Office habit of being older than your years? I hope you will not begin wearing horn spectacles while your sight is still unimpaired."

Craven laughed and felt suddenly younger.

The two dry Martinis were brought, and the talk grew a little more lively. Braybrooke, who seldom took a cocktail, was good enough to allow it to go to his head, and became, for him, almost unbuttoned. Craven, entertained by his elderly friend's unwonted exuberance, talked more freely and a little more intimately to him than usual, and presently alluded to the events of the previous night, and described his expedition to Soho.

"D'you know the Ristorante Bella Napoli?" he asked Braybrooke. "Vesuvius all over the walls, and hair-dressers playing Neapolitan tunes?"

Braybrooke did not, but seemed interested, for he cocked his head to one side, and looked almost volcanic for a moment over the tiny glass in his hand. Craven described the restaurant, the company, the general atmosphere, the Chianti and Toscanas, and, proceeding with artful ingenuity, at last came to his climax—Lady Sellingworth and Miss Van Tuyn in their corner with their feet on the sanded floor and a smoking dish of Risotto alla Milanese before them.

"Adela Sellingworth in Soho! Adela Sellingworth in the midst of such a society!" exclaimed the world's governess with unfeigned astonishment. "What could have induced her—but to be sure, Beryl Van Tuyn is famous for her escapades, and for bringing the most unlikely people into them. I remember once in Paris she actually induced Madame Marretti to go to—ha—ah!"

He pulled himself up short.

"These Martinis are surely very strong!" he murmured into his beard reproachfully.

"I don't think so."

"My doctor tells me that all cocktails are rank poison. They set up fermentation."

"In the mind?" asked Craven.

"No—no—in the—they cause indigestion, in fact. How poor Adela Sellingworth must have hated it!"

"I don't think she did. She seemed quite at home. Besides, she has been to many of the Paris cafes. She told me so."

"It must have been a long time ago. And in Paris it is all so different. And you sat with them?"

Craven recounted the tale of the previous evening. When he came to the Cafe Royal suggestion the world's governess looked really outraged.

"Adela Sellingworth at the Cafe Royal!" he said. "How could Beryl Van Tuyn? And with a Bolshevik, a Turkish refugee—from Smyrna too!"

"There were the Georgians for chaperons."

"Georgians!" said Braybrooke, with almost sharp vivacity. "I really hate that word. We are all subjects of King George. No one has a right to claim a monopoly of the present reign. I—waiter, bring me two more dry Martinis, please."

"Yes, sir."

"What was I saying? Oh, yes—about that preposterous claim of certain groups and coteries! If anybody is a Georgian we are all Georgians together. I am a Georgian, if it comes to that."

"Why not? But Lady Sellingworth is definitely not one."

"How so? I must deny that, really. I know these young poets and painters like to imagine that everyone who has had the great honour of living under Queen Victoria—"

"Forgive me! It isn't that at all."

"Well, then—oh, our dry Martinis! How much is it, waiter?"

"Two shillings, sir."

"Two—thank you. Well, then, Craven, I affirm that Lady Sellingworth is as much a Georgian as any young person who writes bad poetry in Cheyne Walk or paints impossible pictures in Glebe Place."

"She would deny that. She said, in my presence and in that of Sir Seymour Portman and Miss Van Tuyn, that she did not belong to this age."

"What an—what an extraordinary statement!" said Braybrooke, drinking down his second cocktail at a gulp.

"She said she was—or rather, had been—an Edwardian. She would not have it that she belonged to the present day at all."

"A whim! It must have been a whim! The best of women are subject to caprice. It is the greatest mistake to class yourself as belonging to the past. It dates you. It—it—it practically inters you!"

"I think she meant that her glory was Edwardian, that her real life was then. I don't think she chooses to realize how immensely attractive she is now in the Georgian days."

"Well, I really can't understand such a view. I shall—when I meet her—I shall really venture to remonstrate with her about it. And besides, apart from the personal question, one owes something to one's contemporaries. Upon my word, I begin to understand at last why certain very charming women haven't a good word to say for Adela Sellingworth."

"You mean the 'old guard,' I suppose?"

"I don't wish to mention any names. It is always a mistake to mention names. One cannot guard against it too carefully. But having done what she did ten years ago dear Adela Sellingworth should really—but it is not for me to criticise her. Only there is nothing people—women—are more sensitive about than the question of age. No one likes to be laid on the shelf. Adela Sellingworth has chosen to—well—one might feel such a very drastic step to be quite uncalled for—quite uncalled for. And so—but you haven't told me! Did Adela Sellingworth allow herself to be persuaded to go to the Cafe Royal?"

"No, she didn't."

"Thank God for that!" said the world's governess, looking immensely relieved.

"I escorted her to Berkeley Square."

"Good! good!"

"But we walked to the door of the Cafe Royal."

"What—down Shaftesbury Avenue?"

"Yes!"

"Past the Cafe Monico and—Piccadilly Circus?"

"Yes!"

"What time was it?"

"Well after ten."

"Very unsuitable! I must say that—very unsuitable! That corner by the Monico at night is simply chock-a-block—I—I should say, teems, that's the word—teems with people whom nobody knows or could ever wish to know. Beryl Van Tuyn should really be more careful. She grows quite reckless. And Adela Sellingworth is so tall and unmistakable. I do hope nobody saw her."

"I'm afraid scores of people did!"

"No, no! I mean people she knows—women especially."

"I don't think she would care."

"Her friends would care for her!" retorted Braybrooke, almost severely. "To retire from life is all very well. I confess I think it a mistake. But that is merely one man's opinion. But to retire from life, a great life such as hers was, and then after ten years to burst forth into—into the type of existence represented by Shaftesbury Avenue and the Cafe Royal, that would be unheard of, and really almost unforgivable."

"It would, in fact, be old wildness," said Craven, with a faint touch of sarcasm.

"Old wildness! What a very strange expression!"

"But I think it covers the suggested situation. And we know what old wildness is—or if we don't some of the 'old guard' can teach us. But Lady Sellingworth will never be the one to give us such a horrible lesson. If there is a woman in London with true dignity, dignity of the soul, she has it. She has almost too much of it even. I could almost wish she had less."

Braybrooke looked suddenly surprised and then alertly observant.

"Less dignity?" he queried, after a slight but significant pause.

"Yes."

"But can a grande dame, as she is, ever have too much dignity of the soul?"

"I think even such a virtue as that can be carried to morbidity. It may become a weapon against the happiness of the one who has it. Those who have no dignity are disgusting. As Lady Sellingworth said to me, they create nausea—"

"Nausea!" interrupted Braybrooke, in an almost startled voice.

"Yes—in others. But those who have too much dignity wrap themselves up in a secret reserve, and reserve shuts out natural happiness, I think, and creates loneliness. I'm sure Lady Sellingworth feels terribly alone in that beautiful house. I know she does."

"Has she told you so?"

"Good heavens—no. But she never would."

"She need not be alone," observed Braybrooke. "She could have a companion to-morrow."

"I can't imagine her with a Fanny Cronin."

"I don't mean a dame de compagnie. I mean a husband."

Craven's ardent blue eyes looked a question.

"Seymour Portman is always there waiting and hoping."

"Sir Seymour?" cried Craven.

"Well, why not?" said Braybrooke, almost with severity. "Why not?"

"But his age!"

The world's governess, who was older than Sir Seymour, though not a soul knew it, looked more severe.

"His age would be in every way suitable to Adele Sellingworth's," he said firmly.

"Oh, but—"

"Go on!"

"I can't see an old man like Sir Seymour as her husband. Oh, no! It wouldn't do. She would never marry such an old man. I am certain of that."

Braybrooke pinched his lips together and felt for his beard.

"I hope," he said, lifting and lowering his bushy eyebrows, "I hope, at any rate, she will never be so foolish as to marry a man who is what is called young. That would be a terrible mistake, both for her and for him. Now I really must be going. I am dining to-night rather early with—oh, by the way, it is with one of your chiefs—Eric Learington. A good fellow—a good fellow! We are going to some music afterwards at Queen's Hall. Good-bye. I'm very glad you realize Adela Sellingworth's great distinction and charm. But—" He paused, as if considering something carefully; then he added:

"But don't forget that she and Seymour Portman would be perfectly suitable to one another. She is a delightful creature, but she is no longer a young woman. But I need not tell you that."

And having thus done the needless thing he went away, walking with a certain unwonted self-consciousness which had its source solely in dry Martinis.

CHAPTER III

Craven realized that he had "given himself away" directly Braybrooke was gone. The two empty glasses stood on a low table in front of his chair. He looked at them and for an instant was filled with anger against himself. To be immortal—he was old-fashioned enough to believe surreptitiously in his own immortality—and yet to be deflected from the straight path of good sense by a couple of dry Martinis! It was humiliating, and he raged against himself.

Braybrooke had certainly gone away thinking that he, Craven, had fallen in love with Lady Sellingworth. That thought, too, might possibly have come out of one of those little glasses, the one on the left. But nevertheless it would stick in Braybrooke's mind long after the Martinis were forgotten.

And what if it did?

Craven said that to himself, but he felt far less defiant than sensitively uncomfortable. He was surprised by himself. Evidently he had not known his own feelings. When Braybrooke mentioned Seymour Portman as a suitable husband for Lady Sellingworth something strong, almost violent, had risen up in Craven to protest. What was that? And why was he suddenly so angry? He was surely not going to make a fool of himself. He felt almost youthfully alarmed and also rather excited. An odd sense of romance suddenly floated about him. Did that too come from those cursed dry Martinis? Impossible to be sure for the moment. He found himself wondering whether teetotallers knew more about their souls than moderate drinkers, or less.

But the odd sense of romance persisted when the effect of the dry Martinis must certainly have worn off. It was something such as Craven had never known, or even imagined before. He had had his little adventures, and about them had thrown the woven robes that gleam with prismatic colours; he had even had deeper, passionate episodes—as he thought them—in his life. As he had acknowledged in the Ristorante Bella Napoli he had seldom or never started on a journey abroad without a secret hope of romance meeting him on the way. And sometimes it had met him. Or so he had believed at the time. But in all these episodes of the past there had been something definitely physical, something almost horribly natural, a prompting of the body, the kind of thing which belongs to youth, any youth, and which any doctor could explain in a few crude words. Even then, in those now dead moments, Craven had sometimes felt sensitive youth's impotent anger at being under the yoke which is laid upon the necks of innumerable others, clever, dull, aristocratic, common, the elect and the hopelessly vulgar.

In this new episode he was emancipated from that. He was able to feel that he was peculiar, if not unique. In the strong attraction which drew him towards Lady Sellingworth there was certainly nothing of the—well, to himself he called it "the medically physical." Something of the body there might possibly be. Indeed, perhaps it was impossible that there should not be. But the predominant factor had nothing whatever to do with the body. He felt certain of that.

When he got home from the Club he found on his table a note from Beryl Van Tuyn:

HYDE PARK HOTEL, Thursday.

My dear Mr. Craven,—What a pity you couldn't get away last night. But you were quite right to play Squire of Dames to our dear Lady Sellingworth. We had a rather wonderful evening after you had gone. Dick Garstin was in his best vein. Green chartreuse brings out his genius in a wonderful way. I wish it would do for me what it does for him. But I have tried it—in small doses—quite in vain. He and I walked home together and talked of everything under the stars. I believe he is going to paint me. Next time you make your way to the Bella Napoli we might go together. Two lovers of Italy must always feel at home there, and the sight of Vesuvius is encouraging, I think. So don't forget that my "beat," as you call it, often lies in Soho.

Isn't dear Adela Sellingworth delightful? She looked like a wonderful antique in that Italian frame. I love every line in her face and would give my best bronze to have white hair like hers. But somehow I am almost glad she didn't fall to the Cafe Royal. She is right. It is too Georgian for her. She is, as she says, definitely Edwardian and would scarcely understand the new jargon which comes as easily as how d'you do to our lips.

By the way, coming out of the Cafe Royal last night I saw a living bronze.—Yours,

This note half amused and half irritated Craven on a first reading. On a second reading irritation predominated in him. Miss Van Tuyn's determined relegation of Lady Sellingworth to the past seemed somehow to strike at him, to make him—or to intend to make him—ridiculous; and her deliberate classing of him with herself in the underlined "our" seemed rather like an attempt to assert authority, the authority of youth over him. But no doubt this was very natural. Craven was quite sure that Miss Van Tuyn cared nothing about him. But he was a not disagreeable and quite presentable young man; he had looked into her violet eyes, had pressed her hand, had held it longer than was at all necessary, had in fact shown that he was just a young man and easily susceptible; and so she did not choose to let an elderly woman take possession of him even for an hour without sharpening a weapon or two and bringing them into use.

No wonder that men are conceited when women so swiftly take up arms on their account!

For a moment Craven almost disliked Miss Van Tuyn, and made up his mind that there would be no "next time" for him in Soho while she was in London. He knew that whenever they met he would feel her attraction; but he now classed it with those attractions of the past which were disgustingly explicable, and which just recently he had learnt to understand in a way that was almost old.

Was he putting on horn spectacles while his eyesight was still unimpaired? He felt doubtful, almost confused for a moment. Was his new feeling for Lady Sellingworth subtly pulling him away from his youth? Where was he going? Perhaps this new sensation of movement was only deceptive; perhaps he was not on the way to an unknown region. For a moment he wished that he could talk freely, openly, with some understanding friend, a man of course. But though he had plenty of men friends he could not think of one he would be able to confide his present feelings to.

Already he began to realize the human ridicule which always attends upon any departure from what, according to the decision of all absolutely ordinary people, is strictly normal.

Everybody would understand and approve if he were to fall desperately in love with Beryl Van Tuyn; but if he were to prefer a great friendship with Lady Sellingworth to a love affair with her youthful and beautiful friend no one would understand, and everybody would be ready to laugh and condemn.

He knew this and yet he felt obstinate, mulish almost, as he sat down to reply non-committally to Miss Van Tuyn's letter. It was only when he did this that he thought seriously about its last words.

Why had she troubled to write them down? Comparatively young though he was he knew that a woman's "by the way" usually means anything rather than what it seems to mean—namely, a sentence thrown out by chance because it has just happened to turn up in the mind. "A living bronze." Miss Van Tuyn was exceptionally fond of bronzes and collected them with enthusiasm. She knew of course the Museum at Naples. Craven had often visited it when he had been staying at the Villa Rosebery. He could remember clearly almost every important bronze in that wonderful collection. He realized what "a living bronze" must mean when written of by a woman. Miss Van Tuyn had evidently seen an amazingly handsome man coming out of the Cafe Royal. But why should she tell him about it? Perhaps her motive was the very ordinary one, an attempt to rouse the swift jealousy of the male animal. She was certainly "up" to all the usual feminine tricks. He thoroughly realized her vanity and, contrasting it with Lady Sellingworth's apparently almost careless lack of self-consciousness, he wondered whether Lady Sellingworth could ever have been what she was said to have been. If so, as a snake sheds its skin she must surely have sloughed her original nature. He was thankful for that, thankful for her absolute lack of pose and vanity. He even delighted in her self-mockery, divined by him. So few woman mocked at themselves and so many mocked at others.

If Miss Van Tuyn had intended to give a flick to his jealousy at the end of her letter she had failed. If she met fifty living bronzes and added them to her collection it was nothing to him. He compared his feeling when Braybrooke had suggested Seymour Portman as a husband for Lady Sellingworth with his lack of feeling about Miss Van Tuyn and her bronze, and he was almost startled. And yet Miss Van Tuyn was lovely and certainly did not want him to go quite away out of her ken. And, when she chose, she had made him very foolish about her.

What did it all mean?

He wrote a little letter in answer to hers, charmingly polite, but rather vague about Soho. At the end of it, before signing himself "Yours"—he could do no less with her letter before him—he put, "I feel rather intrigued about the living bronze. Was it in petticoats or trousers?"

CHAPTER IV

Craven had been right in his supposition about the world's governess. Braybrooke had gone away from the Club that evening firmly persuaded that his young friend had done the almost unbelievable thing, had fallen in love with Adela Sellingworth. He was really perturbed about it. A tremulous sense of the fitness of things governed his whole life, presided as it were over all his actions and even over most of his thoughts. He instinctively shrank from everything that was bizarre, from everything that was, as he called it, "out of keeping." He was responsible for the introduction of young Craven into Adela Sellingworth's life. It would be very unfortunate indeed, it would be almost disastrous, if the result of that well-meant introduction were to be a preposterous passion!

When the effect of the two cocktails had subsided he tried to convince himself that he was giving way to undue anxiety, that there was really nothing in his supposition except alcohol taken in the afternoon. But this effort failed. He had lived a very long time, much longer than almost anyone knew; he was intimately familiar with the world, and, although unyieldingly discreet himself, was well acquainted with its follies and sins. Life had taught him that practically nothing is impossible. He had known old men to run—or rather to walk—off with young girls; he had known old women to be infatuated with mere boys; he had known well-born women to marry grooms and chauffeurs; a Peer of his acquaintance had linked himself to a cabman's daughter and stuck to her; chorus girls of course perpetually married into the Peerage; human passions—although he could not understand it—ran as wild as the roots of eucalyptus trees planted high within reach of water. So he could not rule out as impossible a sudden affection for Adela Sellingworth in the heart of young Craven. It was really very unfortunate. Feeling responsible, he thought perhaps he ought to do something discreetly. The question was—what?

Braybrooke was inclined to be a matchmaker, though he had neglected to make one match, his own. Thinking things over now, he said to himself that it was quite time young Craven settled down. He was a very promising fellow. Eric Learington, of whom he had made some casual inquiries during the interval between the two parts of the concert at Queen's Hall, had spoken quite warmly about Craven's abilities, industry and ambition. No doubt the young man would go far. But he ought to have a clever wife with some money to help him. A budding diplomatist needs a wife more than most men. He is destined to do much entertaining. Social matters are a part of his duty, of his career. A suitable wife was clearly indicated for young Craven. And it occurred to the world's governess that as he had apparently done harm unwittingly, or approached the doing of harm, by introducing Craven to dear Adela Sellingworth, it was incumbent on him to try to do good, if possible, by now knocking the harm on the head, of course gently, as a well-bred man does things.

Beryl Van Tuyn came into his mind.

As he had told Craven, he knew her quite well and knew all about her. She came of an excellent American family in Philadelphia. She was the only child of parents who could not get on together, and who were divorced. Both her father and mother had married again. The former lived in New York in Fifth Avenue; the latter, who was a beauty, was usually somewhere in Europe—now on the Riviera, now in Rome, at Aix, in Madrid, in London. She sometimes visited Paris, but seldom stayed long anywhere. She professed to be fond of Beryl, but the truth was that Beryl was far too good looking to be desirable as her companion. She loved her child intensely—at a distance. Beryl was quite satisfied to be at a distance, for she had a passion for independence. Her father gave her an ample allowance. Her mother had long ago unearthed Fanny Cronin from some lair in Philadelphia to be her official companion.

Braybrooke knew all this, knew about how much money Miss Van Tuyn had, and about how much she would eventually have. Without being vulgarly curious, he somehow usually got to know almost everything.

Beryl Van Tuyn would be just the wife for young Craven when she had settled down. She was too independent, too original, too daring, and far too conventional for Braybrooke's way of thinking. But he believed her to be really quite all right. Modern Americans held views about personal liberty which were not at all his, but that did not mean that they were not entirely respectable. Beryl Van Tuyn was clever, beautiful, had plenty of money. As a diplomatist's wife, when she had settled down, she would be quite in her element. After some anxious thought he decided that it was his duty to try to pull strings.

The ascertained fact that Craven had met Adela Sellingworth and Beryl Van Tuyn on the same day and together, and that the woman of sixty had evidently attracted him far more than the radiant girl of twenty-four, did not deter Braybrooke from his enterprise. His long experience of the world had led him to know that human beings can, and perpetually do, interfere successfully in each other's affairs, help in making of what are called destinies, head each other off from the prosecution of designs, in fact play Providence and the Devil to each other.

His laudable intention was to play Providence.

On the following day he considered it his social duty to pay a call at Number 18A, Berkeley Square. Dear Adela Sellingworth would certainly wish to know how things were going in Paris. Although she now never went there, and in fact never went anywhere, she still, thank God, had an interest in what was going on in the world. It would be his pleasure to gratify it.

He found her at home and alone. But before he was taken upstairs the butler said he was not sure whether her ladyship was seeing anyone and must find out. He went away to do so, and returned with an affirmative answer.

When Braybrooke came into the big drawing-room on the first floor he fancied that his friend was looking older, and even paler, than usual. As he took her hand he thought, "Can I be right? Is it possible that Craven can imagine himself in love with her?"

It was an uncomplimentary thought, and he tried to put it from him as singularly unsuitable, and indeed almost outrageous at this moment, but it would not go. It defied him and stuck firmly in his mind. In his opinion Adela Sellingworth was the most truly distinguished woman in London. But that she should attract a young man, almost indeed a boy, in that way! It did really seem utterly impossible.

In answer to his inquiry, Lady Sellingworth acknowledged that she had not been feeling very well during the last two days.

"Perhaps you have been doing too much?" he suggested.

The mocking look came into her eyes.

"But what do I ever do now?" she said. "I lie quietly on my shelf. That surely can't be very exhausting."

"No one would ever connect you with being laid on the shelf," said Braybrooke; "your personality forbids that. Besides, I hear that you have been having quite a lively time."

He paused—it was his conception of the pause dramatic—then added:

"At the foot of a volcano!"

"Ah! you have heard about Vesuvius!"

"Yes."

"What a marvellous gatherer of news you are! Beryl Van Tuyn?"

"No. I happened to meet young Craven at the St. James's Club, and he told me of your excursion into Bohemia."

"Bohemia!" she said. "I haven't set foot in that entertaining country since I gave up my apartment in Paris. Soho is beyond its borders. But I confess to Soho. Beryl persuaded me, and I really quite enjoyed it. The coffee was delicious, and the hairdressers put their souls into their guitars. But I doubt if I shall go there again."

"It tired you? The atmosphere in those places is so mephitic."

"Oh, I didn't mind that. Besides, we blew it away by walking home, at least part of the way home."

"Down Shaftesbury Avenue? That was surely rather dangerous."

"Dangerous! Why?"

"The sudden change from stuffiness to cold and damp. Craven spoke of Toscanas. And those cheap restaurants are so very small and badly ventilated."

"Oh, we enjoyed our walk."

"That's good. Craven was quite enthusiastic about the evening."

Again the pause dramatic!

"He's a nice boy. I hope you liked him. I feel a little responsible—"

"Do you? But why?"

"Because I ventured to introduce him to you."

"Oh, don't worry. I assure you I like him very much."

Her tone was very casual, but quite cordial.

"Well, he was enthusiastic about the evening, said it was like a bit of Italy. You know he was once at the embassy in Rome."

"Yes. He told me so."

"I hear very good accounts of him from the Foreign Office. Eric Learington speaks very well of him. He ought to rise high in the career."

"I hope he will. I like to see clever young men get on. And he certainly has something in him."

"Yes, I think so too. By the way, he seems tremendously taken with Miss Van Tuyn."

As the world's governess said this he let his small hazel eyes fix themselves rather intently on Lady Sellingworth's face. He saw no change of expression there. She still looked tired, but casual, neither specially interested nor in the least bored. Her brilliant eyes still held their slightly mocking expression.

"Beryl must be almost irresistible to young men," she said. "She combines beauty with brains, and she has the audacity which nearly always appeals to youth. Besides, unconventionality is really the salt of our over-civilized life, and she has it in abundance. She doesn't merely pretend to it. It is part of her."

"She may grow out of it in time."

"I hope she won't," said Lady Sellingworth, rather decisively. "If she did she would lose a great deal of her charm."

"Well, but when she marries?"

"Is she thinking of marrying?"

"Girls of her age usually are, I fancy."

"If she marries the right man he won't mind her unconventionality. He may even enjoy it."

It occurred to Braybrooke that Adela Sellingworth was supposed to have done a great many unconventional things at one time. Nevertheless he could not help saying:

"I think most husbands prefer their wives to keep within bounds."

"Beryl may never marry," said Lady Sellingworth, rather thoughtfully. "She is an odd girl. I could imagine—"

She paused, but not dramatically.

"Yes?" he said, with gentle insinuation.

"I could imagine her choosing to live a life of her own."

"What, like Caroline Briggs?" he said.

Lady Sellingworth moved, and her face changed, suddenly looked more expressive.

"Ah, Caroline!" she said. "I am very fond of her. She is one in a thousand. But she and Beryl are quite different in character. Caroline lives for self-respect, I think. And Beryl lives for life. Caroline refuses, but Beryl accepts with both hands."

"Then she will probably accept a husband some day."

Suddenly Lady Sellingworth changed her manner. She leaned forward towards the world's governess, smiled at him, and said, half satirically, half confidentially:

"Now what is it you have in the back of your mind?"

Braybrooke was slightly taken aback. He coughed and half closed his eyes, then gently pulled up his perfectly creased trousers, taking hold of them just above the knees.

"I really don't think—" he began.

"You and I are old friends. Do tell me."

He certainly had not come intending to be quite frank, and this sudden attack rather startled him.

"You have formed some project," she continued. "I know it. Now let me guess what it is."

"But I assure you—"

"You have found someone whom you think would suit Beryl as a husband. Isn't that it?"

"Well, I don't know. I confess it had just occurred to me that with her beauty, her cleverness, and her money—for one has to think of money, unfortunately in these difficult days—she would be a very desirable wife for a rising ambitious man."

"No doubt. And who is he?"

It was against all Braybrooke's instincts to burst out abruptly into the open. He scarcely knew what to do. But he was sufficiently sharp to realize that Lady Sellingworth already knew the answer to her question. So he made a virtue of necessity and replied:

"It had merely occurred to me, after noting young Craven's enthusiasm about her beauty and cleverness, that he might suit her very well. He must marry and marry well if he wishes to rise high in the diplomatic career."

"Oh, but some very famous diplomatists have been bachelors," she said, still smiling.

She mentioned two or three.

"Yes, yes, I know, I know," he rejoined. "But it is really a great handicap. If anyone needs a brilliant wife it is an ambassador."

"You think Mr. Craven is destined to become an ambassador?"

"I don't see why not—in the fullness of time, of course. Perhaps you don't know how ambitious and hard-working he is."

"I know really very little about him."

"His abilities are excellent. Learington has a great opinion of him."

"And so you think Beryl would suit him!"

"It just occurred to me. I wouldn't say more than that. I have a horror of matchmaking."

"Of course. Like all of us! Well, you may be right. She seemed to like him. You don't want me to do anything, I suppose?"

"Oh, no—no!" he exclaimed, with almost unnecessary earnestness, and looking even slightly embarrassed. "I only wished to know your opinion. I value your opinion so very highly."

She got up to stir the fire. He sprang, or rather got, up too, rather quickly, to forestall her. But she persisted.

"I know my poker so well," she said. "It will do things for me that it won't do for anyone else. There! That is better."

She remained standing by the hearth, looking tremendously tall.

"I don't think I have an opinion," she said. "Beryl would be a brilliant wife for any man. Mr. Craven seems a very pleasant boy. They might do admirably together. Or they might both be perfectly miserable. I can't tell. Now do tell me about Paris. Did you see Caroline Briggs?"

When Braybrooke left Berkeley Square that day he remembered having once said to Craven that Lady Sellingworth was interested in everything that was interesting except in love affairs, that she did not seem to care about love affairs. And he had a vague feeling of having, perhaps, for once done the wrong thing. Had he bored her? He hoped not. But he was not quite sure.

When he had gone, and she was once more alone. Lady Sellingworth rang the bell. A tall footman came in answer to it, and she told him that if anyone else called he was to say, "not at home." As he was about to leave the room after receiving this order she stopped him.

"Wait a moment."

"Yes, my lady."

She seemed to hesitate; then she said:

"If Mr. Craven happens to call I will see him. He was here two nights ago. Do you know him by sight?"

"I can't say I do, my lady."

"Ah! You were not in the hall when he called the other day?"

"No, my lady."

"He is tall with dark hair, about thirty years old. Murgatroyd is not in to-day, is he?"

"No, my lady."

"Then if anyone calls like the gentleman I have described just ask him his name. And if it is Mr. Craven you can let him in."

"Yes, my lady."

The footman went out. A clock chimed in the distance, where the piano stood behind the big azalea. It was half past five. Lady Sellingworth made up the fire again, though it did not really need mending; then she stood beside it with one narrow foot resting on the low fender, holding her black dress up a little with her left hand.

Was Fate going to leave her alone? That was how she put it to herself. Or was she once more to be the victim of a temperament which she had sometimes hoped was dying out of her? In these last few years she had suffered less and less from it.

She had made a grand effort of will. That was now ten years ago. It had cost her more than anyone would ever know; it had cost her those terrible tears of blood which only the soul weeps. But she had persisted in her effort. A horrible incident, humiliating her to the dust, had summoned all the pride that was left in her. In a sort of cold frenzy of will she had flung life away from her, the life of the woman who was vain, who would have worship, who would have the desire of men, the life of the beauty who would have admiration. All that she had clung to she had abandoned in that dreadful moment, had abandoned as by night a terrified being leaves a dwelling that is in flames. Feeling naked, she had gone out from it into the blackness. And for ten years she had stuck to her resolution, had been supported by the strength of her will fortified by a hideous memory. She had grasped her nettle, had pressed it to her bosom. She had taken to her all the semblance of old age, loneliness, dullness, had thrust away from her almost everything which she had formerly lived by. For, like almost all those who yield themselves to a terrific spasm of will, she had done more than it was necessary for her to do. From one extreme she had gone to another. As once she had tried to emphasize youth, she had emphasized the loss of youth. She had cruelly exposed her disabilities to an astonished world, had flung her loss of beauty, as it were, in the faces of the "old guard." She had called all men to look upon the ravages Time had brought about in her. Few women had ever done what she had done.

And eventually she had had a sort of reward. Gradually she had been enclosed by the curious tranquillity that habit, if not foolish or dangerous, brings to the human being. Her temperament, which had long been her enemy, seemed at last to lie down and sleep. There were times when she had wondered whether perhaps it would die. And she had come upon certain compensations which were definite, and which she had learnt how to value.

By slow degrees she had lost the exasperation of desire. The lust of the eye, spoken of to her by Caroline Briggs in Paris on the evening which preceded her enlightenment, had ceased to persecute her because she had taught herself deliberately the custody of the eye. She had eventually attained to self-respect, even to a quiet sense of personal dignity, not the worldly dignity of the grande dame aware of her aristocratic birth and position in the eyes of the world, but the unworldly dignity of the woman who is keeping her womanhood from all degradation, or possibility of degradation. Very often in those days she had recalled her conversation with Caroline Briggs in the Persian room of the big house in the Champs-Elysees. Caroline had spoken of the women who try to defy the natural law, and had said that they were unhappy women, laughed at by youth, even secretly jeered at. For years she, Adela Sellingworth, had been one of those women. And often she had been very unhappy. That misery at least was gone from her. Her nerves had quieted down. She who had been horribly restless had learnt to be still. Sometimes she was almost at peace. Often and often she had said to herself that Caroline was right, that the price paid by those who flung away their dignity of soul, as she had done in the past, was terrible, too terrible almost for endurance. At last she could respect herself as she was now; at last she could tacitly claim and hope to receive the respect of others. She no longer decked out her bones in jewels. Caroline did not know the reason of the great and startling change in her and in her way of life, and probably supposed both to be due to that momentous conversation. Anyhow, since then, whenever she and Lady Sellingworth had met, she had been extraordinarily kind, indeed, almost tender; and Lady Sellingworth knew that Caroline had taken her part against certain of the "old guard" who had shown almost acute animosity. Caroline Briggs now was perhaps Lady Sellingworth's best friend. For at last they were on equal terms; and that fact had strengthened their friendship. But Caroline was quite safe, and Lady Sellingworth from time to time had realized that for her life might possibly still hold peculiar dangers. There had been moments in those ten years of temptation, of struggle, of a rending of the heart and flesh, which nobody knew of but herself. But as the time went on, and habit more and more asserted its sway, they had been less and less frequent. Calm, resignation had grown within her. There was none of the peace that passeth understanding, but sometimes there was peace. But even when there was, she was never quite certain that she had absolutely conquered herself.

Men and women may not know themselves thoroughly, but they usually know very well whether they have finally got the better of a once dominating tendency or vice, or whether there is still a possibility of their becoming again its victim. In complete victory there is a knowledge which nothing can shake from its throne. That knowledge Lady Sellingworth had never possessed. She hoped, but she did not know. For sometimes, though very seldom, the old wildness seemed to stir within her like a serpent uncoiling itself after its winter's sleep. Then she was frightened and made a great effort, an effort of fear. She set her heel on the serpent, and after a time it lay still. Sometimes, too, the loneliness of her life in her spacious and beautiful house became almost intolerable to her. This was especially the case at night. She did not care to show a haggard and lined face and white hair to her world when it was at play. And though she had defied the "old guard," she did not love meeting all those women whom she knew so well, and who looked so much younger and gayer than she did. So she had many lonely evenings at home, when her servants were together below stairs, and she had for company only the fire and a book.

The dinner in Soho had been quite an experience for her, and though she had taken it so simply and casually, had seemed so thoroughly at home and in place with her feet on the sanded floor, eating to the sound of guitars, she had really been inwardly excited. And when she had looked up and seen Craven gazing towards her she had felt an odd thrill at the heart. For she had known Italy, too, as well as she had know Paris, and had memories connected with Italy. And the guitars had spoken to her of days and nights which her will told her not to think of any more.

And now? Was Fate going to leave her alone? Or was she once more going to be attacked? Something within her, no doubt woman's instinct, scented danger.

Braybrooke's visit had disturbed her. She had known him for years, and knew the type of man he was—careful, discreet, but often very busy. He had a kind heart, but a brain which sometimes wove little plots. On the whole he was a sincere man, except, of course, sometimes socially, but now and then he found it necessary to tell little lies. Had he told her a little lie that day about young Craven and Beryl Van Tuyn? Had he been weaving the first strands of a little plot—a plot like a net—and was it his intention to catch her in it? She knew he had had a definite motive in coming to see her, and that the motive was not connected with his visit to Paris.

His remarks about Craven had interested her because she was interested in Craven, but it was not quite clear to her why Braybrooke should suddenly concentrate on the young man's future, nor why he should, with so much precaution, try to get at her opinion on the question of Craven's marriage. When Braybrooke had first spoken to her of Craven he had not implied that he and Craven were specially intimate, or that he was deeply interested in Craven's concerns or prospects. He had merely told her that Craven was a clever and promising "boy," with an interesting mind and a nice nature, who had a great desire to meet her. And she had good-naturedly said that Craven might call. It had all been very casual. But Braybrooke's manner had now completely changed. He seemed to think he was almost responsible for the young man. There had even been something furtive in his demeanour when speaking about Craven to her, and when she had forced him to explain and to say what was in his mind, for a moment he had been almost confused.

What had it to do with her whether Craven married Beryl Van Tuyn or did not marry her?

Although she had been interested when Braybrooke had spoken of Craven's cleverness and energy, of his good prospects in his career, and of the appreciation of Eric Learington—a man not given to undue praises—she had been secretly irritated when he had come to the question of Beryl Van Tuyn and the importance of Craven's marrying well. Why should he marry at all? And if he must, why Beryl Van Tuyn?

Lady Sellingworth hated the thought of that marriage and the idea that Braybrooke was probably intent on trying to bring it about, or at any rate was considering whether he should make the endeavour, roused in her resentment against him.

"Tiresome old man!" she said to herself, as she stood by the fire. "Why won't he let things alone? What business is it of his?"

And then she felt as if Braybrooke were meditating a stroke against her, and had practically asked her to help him in delivering the blow.

She felt that definitely. And immediately she had felt it she was startled, and the strong sensation of being near to danger took hold of her.

In all the ten years which had passed since the theft of her jewels she had never once deliberately stretched out her hands to happiness. Palliatives she had made the most of; compensations she had been thankful for. She had been very patient, and considering what she had been, very humble. But she had definitely given up the thought of ever knowing again any intimate personal happiness. That book was closed. In ten years she had never once tried to open it.

And now, suddenly, without even being definitely conscious of what she was doing, she had laid her hands on it as if—The change in her, the abrupt and dangerous change, had surely come about two nights ago. And she felt now that something peculiar in Craven, rather than something unusual in herself, had caused it.

Beryl Van Tuyn and she were friends because the girl had professed a cult for her, had been very charming to her, and, when in London, had persistently sought her out. Beryl had amused her. She had even been interested in Beryl because she had noted in her certain traits which had once been predominant in herself. And how she had understood Beryl's vanity, Beryl's passion for independence and love of the unconventional! Although they were so different, of different nations and different breeds, there was something which made them akin. And she had recognized it. And, recognizing it, she had sometimes felt a secret pity and even fear for the girl, thinking of the inevitable fading of that beauty, of the inevitable exasperation of that vanity with the passing of the years. The vanity would grow and the beauty would diminish as time went on. And then, some day, what would Beryl be? For in her vanity there was already exaggeration. In it she had already reached a stage which had only been gained by Lady Sellingworth at a much later period in life. Already she looked in the highways and byways for admiration. She sought for it even among Italian hairdressers! Some day it would make her suffer.

Lady Sellingworth had seen young Craven go away from his visit to her in Beryl's company with perhaps just a touch of half-ironical amusement, mingled with just a touch of half-wistful longing for the days that were over and done with. She knew so well that taking possession of a handsome young man on a first meeting. There was nothing in it but vanity. She had known and had done that sort of thing when she was a reigning beauty. Craven had interested and pleased her at once; she hardly knew why. There was something about him, about his look, bearing and manner which was sympathetic to her. She had felt a quiet inclination to know more of him. That was all. Seymour Portman had liked him, too, and had said so when the door had closed behind the young couple, leaving the old couple to themselves. He would come again some day, no doubt. And while she and Sir Seymour had remained by the fire talking quietly together, in imagination she had seen those two, linked by their youth—that wonderful bond—walking through the London twilight, chattering gaily, laughing at trifling jokes, realizing their freemasonry. And she had asked herself why it was that she could not feel that other freemasonry—of age. Seymour Portman had loved her for many years, loved her now, had never married because of her, would give up anything in London just to be quietly with her, would marry her now, ravaged though she was, worn, twice a widow, with a past behind her which he must know about, and which was not edifying. And yet she could not love him, partly, perhaps chiefly, because there was still rooted in her that ineradicable passion—it must be that, even now, a passion—for youth and the fascination of youth. When at last he had gone she had felt unusually bitter for a few minutes, had asked herself, as human beings ask themselves every day, the eternal why. "Why, why, why am I as I am? Why can't I care for the suitable? Why can't I like the gift held out to me? Why doesn't my soul age with my body? Why must I continue to be lonely just because of the taint in my nature which forbids me to find companionship in one who finds perfect companionship in me? Why—to sum up—am I condemned eternally to be myself?"

There was no answer. The voice was not in the whirlwind. And presently she had dismissed those useless, those damnable questions, which only torture because they are never answered.

And then had come the night in Soho. And there for the first time since they had known each other she had felt herself to be subtly involved in a woman's obscure conflict with Beryl Van Tuyn. She was not conscious of having taken up weapons. Nevertheless she had no doubt about the conflict. And on her side any force brought into play against her beautiful friend must have issued simply from her personality, from some influence, perhaps from some charm, which she had not deliberately used. (At least she thought she was being sincere with herself in telling herself that.) Craven had been the cause of the conflict, and certainly he had been fully aware of Beryl Van Tuyn's part in it. And he had shown quiet determination, willfulness even. That willfulness of his had pleased Lady Sellingworth more than anything had pleased her for a very long time. It had even touched her. At first she had thought that perhaps it had been prompted by chivalry, by something charmingly old-fashioned, and delicately gentlemanly in Craven. Later on she had been glad—intimately, warmly glad—to be quite sure that something more personal had guided him in his conduct that night.

He had simply preferred her company to the company of Beryl Van Tuyn. She was woman enough to rejoice in that fact. It was even rather wonderful to her. And it had given Craven a place in her estimation which no one had had for ten years.

Beryl's pressure upon him had been very definite. She had practically told him, and asked him, to do a certain thing—to finish the evening with her. And he had practically denied her right to command, and refused her request. He had preferred to the Georgians and their lively American contemporary, sincerely preferred, an Edwardian.

The compliment was the greater because the Edwardian had not encouraged him. Indeed in a way he had really defied her as well as Beryl Van Tuyn.

She had loved his defiance. When he had flatly told her he did not intend to go back to the Cafe Royal she had felt thankful to him—just that. And just before his almost boyish remark, made with genuine vexation in his voice, about the driving of London chauffeurs had given her a little happy thrill such as she had not known for years.

She had not had the heart to leave him on her doorstep.

But now, standing by the fire, she knew that it would have been safer to have left him there. And it would be safer now to ring the bell, summon the footman, and say that she was not at home to anyone that afternoon. While she was thinking this the footman entered the room. Hearing him she turned sharply.

"What is it?"

"Sir Seymour Portman has called, my lady. I told him you were not at home. But he asked me to make quite sure."

Lady Sellingworth hesitated. After a moment's pause she said, in a dry voice:

"Not at home."

The footman went out.

There are moments in life which are full of revelation. That was such a moment for Lady Sellingworth. When she had heard the door open her instinct had played her false. She had turned sharply feeling certain that Craven had called. The reaction she felt when she heard the name of Sir Seymour told her definitely that she was in danger. She felt angry with herself, even disgusted, as well as half frightened.

"What a brute I am!"

She formed those words with her lips. An acute sense of disappointment pervaded her because Craven had not come, though she had no reason whatever to expect him. But she was angry because of her feeling about Seymour Portman. It was horrible to have such a tepid heart as hers was when such a long and deep devotion was given to it. The accustomed thing then made scarcely any impression upon her, while the thing that was new, untried, perhaps worth very little, excited in her an expectation which amounted almost to longing!

"How can Seymour go on loving such a woman as I am?" she thought.

Stretching herself a little she was able to look into an oval Venetian mirror above the high marble frame of the fireplace. She looked to scourge herself as punishment for what she was feeling.

"You miserable, ridiculous old woman!" she said to herself, as she saw her lined face which the mirror, an antique one, slightly distorted.

"You ought to be thankful to have such a friendship as Seymour's!"

She said that, and she knew that if, disobeying her order to the footman, he had come upstairs, her one desire would have been to get rid of him, at all costs, to get him and his devotion out of the house, lest Craven should come and she should not have Craven alone. If Seymour knew that surely even his love would turn into hatred!

And if Craven knew!

She felt that day as if all the rampart of will, which ten years' labour had built up between her and the dangers and miseries attendant upon such a temperament as hers, were beginning before her eyes to crumble into dust, touched by the wand of a maleficent enchanter.

And it was Craven's fault. He should have been like other young men, obedient to the call of beauty and youth; he should have been wax in Beryl Van Tuyn's pretty hands. Then this would never have happened, this crumbling of will. He had done a cruel thing without being aware of his cruelty. He had been carried away by something that was not primarily physical. And in yielding to that uncommon impulse, which proved that he was not typical, he had set in activity, in this hidden and violent activity, that which had been sleeping so deeply as to seem like something dead.

As Lady Sellingworth looked into the Venetian mirror, which made her ugliness of age look uglier than it was, she regretted sharply that she had allowed herself to grow old in this fearfully definite way. It was too horrible to look like this and to be waiting eagerly, with an almost deceiving eagerness, for the opening of a door, a footfall, the sound of a voice that was young. Mrs. Ackroyd, Lady Archie Brook—they looked surely twenty years younger than she did. She had been a fool! She had been a passionate, impulsive fool!

No; she was being a fool now.

If only Caroline Briggs were in London! At that moment Lady Sellingworth longed to be defended against herself. She felt that she was near to the edge of a precipice, but that perhaps a strong hand could pull her away from it into the safety she had known for ten years.

"I am sixty. That settles it. There is nothing to be excited about, nothing to look for, nothing to draw back from or refuse. The fact that I am sixty and look as I do settles the whole matter."

They were brave words, but unfortunately they altered nothing. Feeling was untouched by them. Even conviction was not attained. Lady Sellingworth knew she was sixty, but she felt like a woman of thirty at that moment. And yet she was not deceived, was not deceiving herself. She did know—or felt that she absolutely knew—that the curious spell she had evidently been able, how she scarcely knew, to exert upon Craven during his visit to her that night could not possibly be lasting. He must be a quite unusual young man, perhaps even in some degree abnormal. But even so the fascination he had felt, and had shown that he felt, could not possibly be a lasting fascination. In such matters she knew.

Therefore surely the way was plain before her. Ten years ago she had made up her mind, as a woman seldom makes up her mind. She had seen facts, basic facts, naked in a glare of light. Those facts had not changed. But she had changed. She was ten years older. The horror of passing into the fifties had died out in the cold resignation of passing into the sixties. Any folly now would be ten times more foolish than a folly of ten years ago. She told herself that, reiterated it.

The clock struck six. She heard it and turned from the fire. Certainly Craven would not call now. It was too late. Only a very intimate friend would be likely to call after six o'clock, and Craven was not a very intimate friend, but only a new acquaintance whom she had been with twice. When he had said good-bye to her after their long talk by the fire on the night of the dinner in Soho she had said nothing about his coming again. And he had not mentioned it. But she had felt then that to speak of such a thing was quite unnecessary, that it was tacitly understood between them that of course he would come again, and soon. And she believed that he had felt as she did. For despite her self-mockery, and even now when looking back, she had known, and still knew, that they had gone quite a long way together in a very short time.

That happens sometimes; but perhaps very seldom when one of the travellers is sixty and the other some thirty years younger. Surely something peculiar in Craven rather than something unusual in herself had been at the root of the whole thing.

That night he had seemed so oddly at home in her house, and really he had seemed so happy and at ease. They had talked about Italy, and he had told her what Italy meant to him, quite simply and without any pose, forgetting to be self-conscious in the English way. He had passed a whole summer on the bay of Naples, and he had told her all about it. And in the telling he had revealed a good deal of himself. The prelude in Soho had no doubt prepared the way for such talk by carrying them to Naples on wings of music. They would not have talked just like that after a banal dinner at Claridge's or the Carlton. Craven had shown the enthusiasm that was in him for the sun, the sea, life let loose from convention, nature and beautiful things. The Foreign Office young man—quiet, reserved, and rather older than his years—had been pushed aside by a youth who had some Pagan blood in him, who had some agreeable wildness under the smooth surface which often covers only other layers of smoothness. He had told her of his envy of the sea people and she had understood it; and, in return, she had told him of an American boy whom she had known long ago, and who, fired by a book about life on the bay of Naples which he had read in San Francisco, had got hold of a little money, taken ship to Naples, gone straight to the point at Posilpipo, and stayed there among the fishermen for nearly two years, living their life, eating their food, learning to speak their argot, becoming at length as one of them. So thoroughly indeed had he identified himself with them that often he had acted as boatman to English and American tourists, and never had his nationality been discovered. In the end, of course, he had gone back to San Francisco, and she believed, was now a lawyer in California. But at least he had been wise enough to give up two years to a whim, and had bared his skin to the sun for two glorious summers. And not everyone has the will to adventure even so far as that.

Then they had talked about the passion for adventure, and Craven had spoken of his love, not yet lost, for Browning's poem, "Waring"; how he had read it when quite a boy and been fascinated by it as by few other poems. He had even quoted some lines from it, and said them well, taking pains and not fearing any criticism or ridicule from her. And they had wondered whether underneath the smooth surface of Browning, the persistent diner out, there had not been far down somewhere a brown and half-savage being who, in some other existence, had known life under lateen sails on seas that lie beyond the horizon line of civilization. And they had spoken of the colours of sails, of the red, the brown, the tawny orange-hued canvases, that, catching the winds under sunset skies, bring romance, like some rare fruit from hidden magical islands, upon emerald, bright-blue or indigo seas.

The talk had run on without any effort. They had been happily sunk in talk. She had kept the fire from her face with the big fan. But the fire had lit his face up sometimes and the flames had seemed to leap in his eyes. And watching him without seeming to watch him the self-mockery had died out of her eyes. She had forgotten to mock at herself and had let herself go down the stream: floating from subject to subject, never touching bottom, never striking the bank, never brought up short by an obstacle. It had been a perfect conversation. Even her imp must have been quite absorbed in it. For he had not tormented her during it.

But at last the clock had struck one, just one clear chiming blow. And suddenly Craven had started up. His blue eyes were shining and a dusky red had come into his cheeks. And he had apologized, had said something about being "carried away" beyond all recollection of the hour. She had stayed where she was and had bidden him good night quietly from the sofa, shutting up her fan and laying it on a table. And she had said: "I wonder what it was like with the Georgians!" And then he had again forgotten the hour, and had stood there talking about the ultra-modern young people of London as if he were very far away from them, were much older, much simpler, even much more akin to her, than they were. He had prefaced his remarks with the words, "I had forgotten all about them!" and she had felt it was true. Beryl Van Tuyn's name had not been mentioned between them. But she was not a Georgian. Perhaps that fact accounted for the omission, or perhaps there were other reasons for their not speaking of her just then. She had done her best to prevent the evening intimacy which had been theirs. And they both knew it. Perhaps that was why they did not speak of her. Poor Beryl! Just then Lady Sellingworth had known a woman's triumph which was the sweeter because of her disadvantages. Thirty-six years older than the young and vivid beauty! And yet he had preferred to end his evening with her! He must be an unusual, even perhaps a rather strange man. Or else—no, the tremendous humiliation she had endured ten years ago, acting on a nature which had always been impaired by a secret diffidence, had made her too humble to believe any longer that she had within herself the conqueror's power. He was not like other young men. That was it. She had come upon an exceptional nature. Exceptional natures love, hate, are drawn and repelled in exceptional ways. The rules which govern others do not apply to them. Craven was dangerous because he was, he must be, peculiar.

When at last he had left her that night it had been nearly half-past one. But he had not apologized again. In going he had said: "Thank God you refused to go to the Cafe Royal!"

Nearly half-past one! Lady Sellingworth now looked at the clock. It was nearly half-past six.

She had a lonely dinner, a lonely evening before her.

Suddenly all her resignation seemed to leave her, to abandon her, as if it had had enough of her and could not bear to be with her for another minute. She saw her life as a desert, without one flower, one growing green thing in it. How had she been able to endure it for so long? It was a monstrous injustice that she should be condemned to this horrible, unnerving loneliness. What was the use of living if one was entirely alone? What was the use of money, of a great and beautiful house, of comfort and leisure, if nobody shares them with you? People came to see her, of course. But what is the use of visitors, of people who drop in, and drop out just when you most need someone to help you in facing life, in the evenings and when deep night closes in? At that moment she felt, in her anger and rebellion, that she had never had anything in her life, that all the women she knew—except perhaps Caroline Briggs—had had more than herself, had had a far better time than she had had. During the last ten years her brilliant past had faded until now she could scarcely believe in it. It had become like a pale aquarelle. Her memory retained events, of course, but they seemed to have happened in the life of someone she had known intimately rather than of herself. They were to her like things told rather than like things lived. There were times when she even felt innocent. So much had she changed during the last ten years. And now she revolted, like a woman who had never lived and wanted to live for the first time, like a woman who had never had anything and who demanded possession. She even got up and stood out in the big room, saying to herself:

"What shall I do to-night? I can't stay here all alone. I must go out. I must do something unusual to take me out of myself. Mere stagnation here will drive me mad. I've got to do something to get away from myself."

But what could she do? An elderly well-known woman cannot break out of her house in the night, like an unknown young man, and run wild in the streets of London, or wander in the parks, seeking distractions and adventures.

Ten years ago in Paris she had felt something of the same angry desire for the freedom of a man, something of the same impotence. Her curbed wildness then had tortured her. It tortured her now. Life was in violent activity all about her. Even the shop girls had something to look forward to. Soon they would be going out with their lovers. She knew something of the freedom of the modern girl. Women were beginning to take what men had always had. But all that freedom was too late for her! (She forgot that she had taken it long ago in Paris and felt that she had never had it. And that feeling made part of her anger.)

The clock struck the half-hour.

Just then the door was opened and the footman appeared before she had had time to move. He looked faintly surprised at seeing her standing facing him in the middle of the room.

"Mr. Craven has called my lady."

"Mr. Craven! But I told you to let him in. Have you sent him away?"

"No, my lady. But Mr. Craven wouldn't come up till I had seen your ladyship. He said it was so late. He asked me first to tell your ladyship he had called, and whether he might see you just for a minute, as he had a message to give your ladyship."

"A message! Please ask him to come up."

The footman went out, and Lady Sellingworth went to sit down near the fire. She now looked exactly as usual, casual, indifferent, but kind, not at all like a woman who would ever pity herself. In a moment the footman announced "Mr. Craven," and Craven walked in with an eager but slightly anxious expression on his face.

"I know it is much too late for a visit," he said. "But I thought I might perhaps just speak to you."

"Of course. I hear you have a message for me. Is it from Beryl?"

He looked surprised.

"Miss Van Tuyn? I haven't seen her."

"Yes?"

"I only wanted—I wondered whether, if you are not doing anything to-night, I could persuade you to give me a great pleasure. . . . Could I?"

"But what is it?"

"Would you dine with me at the Bella Napoli?"

Lady Sellingworth thought of the shop girls again, but now how differently!

"I would come and call for you just before eight. It's a fine night. It's dry, and it will be clear and starry."

"You want me to walk?"

He slightly reddened.

"Or shall we dress and go in a taxi?" he said.

"No, no. But I haven't said I can come."

His face fell.

"I will come," she said. "And we will walk. But what would Mr. Braybrooke say?"

"Have you seen him? Has he told you?"

"What?"

"About our conversation in the club?"

"I have seen him, and I don't think he is quite pleased about Shaftesbury Avenue. But never mind. I cannot live to please Mr. Braybrooke. Au revoir. Just before eight."

When he had gone Lady Sellingworth again looked in the glass.

"But it's impossible!" she said to herself. "It's impossible!"

She hated her face at that moment, and could not help bitterly regretting the fierce impulse of ten years ago. If she had not yielded to that impulse she might now have been looking, not at a young woman certainly, but a woman well preserved. Now she was frankly a wreck. She would surely look almost grotesque dining alone with young Craven. People would think she was his grandmother. Perhaps it would be better not to go. She was filled with a sense of painful hesitation. She came away from the glass. No doubt Craven was "on the telephone." She might communicate with him, tell him not to come, that she had changed her mind, did not feel very well. He would not believe her excuse whatever it was, but that could not be helped. Anything was better than to make a spectacle of herself in a restaurant. She had not put Craven's address and telephone number in her address book, but she might perhaps have kept the note he had written to her before their first meeting. She did not remember having torn it up. She went to her writing-table, but could not find the note. She found his card, but it had only his club address on it. Then she went downstairs to a morning room she had on the ground floor. There was another big writing-table there. The telephone was there too. After searching for several minutes she discovered Craven's note, the only note he had ever written to her. Stamped in the left-hand corner of the notepaper was a telephone number.

She was about to take down the receiver when she remembered that Craven had not yet had time to walk back to his flat from her house, even if he were going straight home. She must wait a few minutes. She came away from the writing-table, sat down in an armchair, and waited.

Night had closed in. Heavy curtains were drawn across the tall windows. One electric lamp, which she had just turned on, threw a strong light on the writing-table, on pens, stationery, an address book, a telephone book, a big blue-and-gold inkstand, some photographs which stood on a ledge protected by a tiny gilded rail. The rest of the room was in shadow. A low fire burned in the grate.

Lady Sellingworth did not take up a book or occupy herself in any way. She just sat still in the armchair and waited. Now and then she heard a faint footfall, the hoot of a motor horn, the slight noise of a passing car. And loneliness crept upon her like something gathering her into a cold and terrible embrace.

It occurred to her that she might ask Craven presently through the telephone to come and dine in Berkeley Square. No one would see her with him if she did that, except her own servants.

But that would be a compromise. She was not fond of compromises. Better one thing or the other. Either she would go with him to the restaurant or she would not see him at all that night.

If Caroline Briggs were only here! And yet if she were it would be difficult to speak about the matter to her. If she were told of it, what would she say? That would depend upon how she was told. If she were told all the truth, not mere incidents, but also the feelings attending them, she would tell her friend to give the whole thing up. Caroline was always drastic. She always went straight to the point.

But Caroline was in Paris.

Lady Sellingworth looked at her watch. Craven lived not far off. He might be at home by now. But perhaps she had better give him, and herself, a little more time. For she was still undecided, did not yet know what she was going to do. Impulse drove her on, but something else, reason perhaps, or fear, or secret, deep down, painfully acquired knowledge, was trying to hold her back. She remembered her last stay in Paris, her hesitation then, her dinner with Caroline Briggs, the definite decision she had come to, her effort to carry it out, the terrible breakdown of her decision at the railway station and its horrible result.

Disaster had come upon her because she had yielded to an impulse ten years ago. Surely that should teach her not to yield to an impulse now. But the one was so different from the other, as different as that horrible man in Paris had been from young Craven. That horrible man in Paris! He had disappeared out of her life. She had never seen him again, had never mentioned him to anybody. He had gone, as mysteriously as he had come, carrying his booty with him, all those lovely things which had been hers, which she had worn on her neck and arms and bosom, in her hair and on her hands. Sometimes she had wondered about him, about the mentality and the life of such a man as he was, a creature of the underworld, preying on women, getting up in the morning, going to bed at night, with thoughts of crime in his mind, using his gift of beauty loathsomely. She had wondered, too, how it was that such loathsomeness as his was able to hide itself, how it was that he could look so manly, so athletic, even so wistful and eager for sympathy.

But Seymour Portman had seen through him at a first glance. Evidently that type of man had a power to trick women's instincts, but was less successful with men. Perhaps Caroline was right, and the whole question was simply one of the lust of the eye.

Young Craven was good-looking too. But surely she had not been attracted to him, brought into sympathy with him merely because of that. She hoped not. She tried hard to think not. A woman of her age must surely be beyond the lure of mere looks in a man unconnected with the deeper things which make up personality.

And yet ten years ago she had been lured towards a loathsome and utterly abominable personality by mere looks. Certainly her nature inclined her to be a prey to just that—the lust of the eye.

(Caroline Briggs was horribly apposite in some of her remarks.)

She tried to reconstitute her evenings with Craven in her imagination, keeping the conversation exactly as it had been, but giving him a thoroughly plain face, a bad complexion, mouse-coloured feeble hair, undistinguished features, ordinary eyes, and a short broad figure. Certainly it would have made a difference. But how much difference? Perhaps a good deal. But he had enjoyed the conversation as much as she had, and there was nothing in her appearance now to arouse the lust of the eye. Suddenly it occurred to her that she possessed now at least one advantage. If a young man were attracted by her it must be her personality, herself in fact, which attracted him. It could not be her looks. And surely it is better to attract by your personality than by your looks.

A woman's voice whispered within her just then, "It is better to attract by both. Then you are safe."

She moved uneasily. Then she got up and went to the telephone. The chances were in favour of Craven's being in his flat by now.

As she put her hand on the receiver, but before she took it down, Lady Sellingworth thought of the Paris railway station, of what had happened there, of the stern resolution she had come to that day, of the tears of blood that had sealed it, of the will that had enabled her to stick to it during ten years. And she thought, too, of that phrase of Caroline Briggs's concerning the lust of the eye.

"I won't go!" she said to herself.

And she took the receiver down.

Almost immediately she was put through, and heard Craven's voice at the other end, the voice which had recited those lines from Browning's "Waring" by the fire, saying:

"Yes? Who is it?"

"Lady Sellingworth," she replied.

The sound of the voice changed at once, became eager as it said:

"Oh—Lady Sellingworth! I have only just come in. I know what it is."

"But how can you?"

"I do. You want me to dress for dinner. And we are to go in a cab and be very respectable instead of Bohemian. Isn't that it?"

She hesitated. Then she said:

"No; it isn't that."

"Do tell me then!"

"I think—I'm afraid I can't come."

"Oh, no—it can't be that! But I have reserved the table in the corner for us. And we are going to have gnocchi done in a special way with cheese. Gnocchi with cheese! Please—please don't disappoint me."

"But I haven't been very well the last two days, and I'm rather afraid of the cold."

"I am so sorry. But it's absolutely dry under foot. I swear it is!"

A pause. Then his voice added:

"Since I came in I have refused an invitation to dine out to-night. I absolutely relied on you."

"Yes?"

"Yes. It was from Miss Van Tuyn, to dine with her at the Bella Napoli."

"I'll come!" said Lady Sellingworth. "Good-bye."

And she put up the receiver.

CHAPTER V

Miss Van Tuyn had not intended to stay long in London when she came over from Paris. But now she changed her mind. She was pulled at by three interests—Lady Sellingworth, Craven and the living bronze. A cold hand had touched her vanity on the night of the dinner in Soho. She had felt angry with Craven for not coming back to the Cafe Royal, and angrier still with Lady Sellingworth for keeping him with her. Although she did not positively know that Craven had spent the last part of the evening in the drawing-room at Berkeley Square, she felt certain that he had done so. Probably Lady Sellingworth had pressed him to go in. But perhaps he had been glad to go, perhaps he had submitted to an influence which had carried him for the time out of his younger, more beautiful friend's reach.

Miss Van Tuyn resolved definitely that Craven must at once be added to the numerous men who were mad about her. So much was due to her vanity. Besides, she liked Craven, and might grow to like him very much if she knew him better. She decided to know him better, much better, and wrote her letter to him. Craven had puzzled a little over the final sentence of that letter. There were two reasons for its apparently casual insertion. Miss Van Tuyn wished to whip Craven into alertness by giving his male vanity a flick. Her other reason was more subtle. Some instinct seemed to tell her that in the future she might want to use the stranger as a weapon in connexion with Craven. She did not know how exactly. But in that sentence of her letter she felt that she was somehow preparing the ground for incidents which would be brought about by destiny, or which chance would allow to happen.

That she would some day know "the living bronze" she felt certain. For she meant to know him. Garstin's brutal comment on him had frightened her. She did not believe it to be just. Garstin was always brutal in his comments. And he lived so perpetually among shady, or more than shady, people that it was difficult for him to believe in the decency of anybody who was worth knowing. For him the world seemed to be divided into the hopelessly dull and conventional, who did not count, and the definitely outrageous, who were often interesting and worthy of being studied and sometimes painted. It must be obvious to anyone that the living bronze could not be numbered among the merely dull and conventional. Naturally enough, then, Garstin supposed him to be a successful blackmailer. Miss Van Tuyn was not going to allow herself to be influenced by the putrescence of Garstin's mind. She had her own views on everything and usually held to them. She had quite decided that she would get to know the living bronze through Garstin, who always managed to know anyone he was interested in. Being totally unconventional and not, as he said, caring a damn about the proprieties, if he wished to speak to someone he spoke to him, if he wished to paint him he told him to come along to the studio. There was a simplicity about Garstin's methods which was excused in some degree by his fame. But if he had not been famous he would have acted in just the same way. No shyness hindered him; no doubts about himself ever assailed him. He just did what he wanted to do without arriere pensee. There was certainly strength in Garstin, although it was not moral strength.

The morning after the dinner in Soho Miss Van Tuyn telegraphed to Fanny Cronin to come over at once, with Bourget's latest works, and engaged an apartment at Claridge's. Although she sometime dined in the shadow of Vesuvius, she preferred to issue forth from some lair which was unmistakably smart and comfortable. Claridge's was both, and everybody came there. Miss Cronin wired obedience and would be on the way immediately. Meanwhile Miss Van Tuyn received Craven's note in answer to hers.

She grasped all its meaning, surface and subterranean, immediately. It meant a very polite, very carefully masked, withdrawal from the sphere of her influence. The passage about Soho was perfectly clear to her mind, although to many it might have seemed to convey an agreeably worded acceptance of her suggestion, only laying its translation into action in a rather problematical future, the sort of future which would become present when "neither of us has an engagement."

Craven had evidently been "got at" by Adela Sellingworth.

On the morning after Miss Van Tuyn's telegram to Paris Fanny Cronin arrived, with Bourget's latest book in her hand, and later they settled in at Claridge's. Miss Cronin went to bed, and Miss Van Tuyn, who had no engagement for that evening, went presently to the telephone. Although in her note to Craven by implication she had left it to him to suggest a tete-a-tete dinner in Soho, she was now resolved to ask him. She was a girl of the determined modern type, not much troubled by the delicacies or inclined to wait humbly on the pleasure of men. If a man did not show her the way, she was quite ready to show the way to him. Without being precisely of the huntress type, she knew how to take bow and arrow in her hand.

She rang up Craven, and the following dialogue took place at the telephone.

"Yes? Yes?"

"Is Mr. Craven there?"

"Yes, I am Alick Craven. Who is it, please?"

"Don't you know?"

"One minute! Is it—I'm afraid I don't."

"Beryl Van Tuyn."

"Of course! I knew the voice at once, but somehow I couldn't place it. How are you, Miss Van Tuyn?"

"Dangerously well."

"That's splendid."

"And you?"

"I'm what dull people call very fit and cheery."

"How dreadful! Now, tell me—are you engaged to-night? I'm sure you aren't, because I want you to take me to dine at the Bella Napoli. We agreed to tell each other when we were free. So I take you at your word."

"Oh, I'm awfully sorry!"

"What?"

"I'm ever so sorry."

"Why?"

"I have a dinner engagement to-night."

"What a bore! But surely you can get out of it?"

"I'm afraid not. No, really I can't."

"Send an excuse! Say you are ill."

"I can't honestly. It's—it's rather important. Besides, the fact is, I'm the host."

"Oh!"

The timbre of Miss Van Tuyn's voice changed slightly at this crisis in the conversation.

"Oh—if you're the host, of course. . . . You really are the host?"

"Yes, I really am. So you see!"

"No, but I hear and understand. Never mind. Ask me another night."

"Yes—that's it. Another night. Thank you so much. By the way, does the living bronze—"

"What? The living what?"

"Bronze! . . . The living bronze—"

"Oh, yes. Well, what about it?"

"Does it wear petticoats or trousers?"

"Trousers."

"Then I think I rather hate it."

"You—"

But at this point the exchange intervened. Then something happened; and then Craven heard a voice saying:

"No, darling! It's the teeth—the teeth on the left-hand side. You know when we were at the Carlton I was in agony. Tell Annie not to—"

It was useless to persist. Besides, he did not want to. So he put up the receiver. Almost immediately afterwards he was rung up by Lady Sellingworth, hung on the edge of disappointment for an instant, and then was caught back into happiness.

When he finally left the telephone and went to his bedroom to change his clothes, but not to "dress," he thanked God for having clinched matters so swiftly. Lady Sellingworth had certainly meant to let him down. Some instinct had told him what to say to her to make her change her mind. At least, he supposed so. For she had abruptly changed her mind after hearing of Miss Van Tuyn's invitation. But why had she meant to give up the dinner? What had happened between his exit from her house and her ringing him up? For he could not believe in the excuse of ill-health put forward by her. He was puzzled. Women certainly were difficult to understand. But it was all right now. His audacity—for he thought it rather audacious of him to have asked Lady Sellingworth to dine alone with him at the Bella Napoli—was going to be rewarded. As he changed his clothes he hummed to himself:

"O Napoli! Bella Napoli!"

At Claridge's meanwhile Miss Van Tuyn was not humming. As she came away from the telephone she felt in a very bad temper. Things were not going well for her just now in London, and she was accustomed to things going well. As in Craven's letter, so just now at the telephone, she had been aware of resistance, of a distinct holding back from her influence. This was a rare experience for her, and she resented it. She believed Craven's excuse for not dining with her. It was incredible that a young man who had nothing to do would refuse to pass an evening in her company. No; he was engaged. But she had felt at the telephone that he was not sorry he was engaged; she still felt it. He was going to do something which he preferred doing to dining with her. The tell-tale line showed itself in her low white forehead.

Fanny Cronin had gone to bed; otherwise they might have dined downstairs in the restaurant, where they would have been sure of meeting people whom Miss Van Tuyn knew. She did not choose to go down and dine alone. A lonely dinner followed by a lonely evening upstairs did not appeal to her; for a moment, like Lady Sellingworth in Berkeley Square, she felt the oppression of solitude. She went to the window of her sitting-room, drew the curtain back, pulled aside the blind, and looked out. The night was going to be fine; the sky was clear and starry; the London outside drew her. For a moment she thought of telephoning to Garstin to come out somewhere and dine with her. He was rude to her, seldom paid her a compliment, and never made love to her. But he was famous and interesting. They could always get on in a tete-a-tete conversation. And then there was now that link between them of the living bronze and her plan with which Garstin was connected. She meant to know that man; she meant it more strongly now that Craven was behaving so strangely. She dropped the blind, drew the curtains forward, went to the fire, and lit a cigarette.

She wondered where Craven was dining. At some delightful restaurant with someone he liked very much. She was quite sure of that; or—perhaps he had told her a lie! Perhaps he was dining at Number 18A, Berkeley Square! Suddenly she felt certain that she had hit on the truth. That was it! He was dining in Berkeley Square with Adela Sellingworth. They were going to have another evening together. Possessed by this conviction, and acting on an almost fierce impulse—for her vanity was now suffering severely—she went again to the telephone and rang up Lady Sellingworth. When she was put through, and heard the characteristic husky voice of her so-called friend at the other end of the line, she begged Lady Sellingworth to come and dine at Claridge's that night and have a quiet talk over things. As she had expected, she got a refusal. Lady Sellingworth was engaged. Miss Van Tuyn, with a discreet half-question, half-expression of disappointment, elicited the fact that Lady Sellingworth was dining out, not having people at home. The conversation concluded at both ends with charming expressions of regret, and promises to be together as soon as was humanly possible.

Again Miss Van Tuyn believed an excuse; again her instinct told her that she had invited someone to dine who was glad to be engaged. There was only one explanation of the two happy refusals. She was now absolutely positive that Lady Sellingworth and Craven were going to dine together, and not in Berkeley Square, and Craven was going to be the host, as he had said. He had invited Lady Sellingworth to go out and dine somewhere alone with him, and she had consented to do so. Where would they go? She thought of the Bella Napoli. It was very unlikely that they would meet anyone there whom they both knew, and they had met at the Bella Napoli. Perhaps they—or perhaps she—had romantic recollections connected with it! Perhaps they had arranged the other evening to dine there again—and without Beryl Van Tuyn this time! If so, the intervention at the telephone must have seemed an ironic stroke to them both.

For a moment Miss Van Tuyn's injured vanity made her feel as if they were involved in a plot directed against her and her happiness, as if they had both behaved abominably to her. She had always been so charming to Lady Sellingworth, had always praised her, had taken her part, had even had quite a cult for her! It was very disgusting. It showed Miss Van Tuyn how right she had been in generally cultivating men instead of women. For, of course, Craven could not get out of things with an experienced rusee woman of the world like Adela Sellingworth. Women of that type always knew how to "corner" a man, especially if he were young and had decent instincts. Poor Craven!

But at the telephone Miss Van Tuyn had felt that Craven was glad to be engaged that evening, that he was looking forward to something.

After sitting still for a few minutes, always with the tell-tale line in her forehead, Miss Van Tuyn got up with an air of purpose. She went to a door at the end of the sitting-room, opened it, crossed a lobby, opened double doors, and entered a bedroom in which a large, mild-looking woman, with square cheeks, chestnut-coloured smooth hair, large, chestnut-coloured eyes under badly painted eyebrows, and a mouth with teeth that suggested a very kind and well-meaning rabbit, was lying in bed with a cup and a pot of camomile tea beside her, and Bourget's "Mensonges" in her hand. This was Fanny Cronin, originally from Philadelphia, but now largely French in a simple and unpretending way. The painted eyebrows must not be taken as evidence against her. They were the only artificiality of which Miss Cronin was guilty; and as an unkind fate had absolutely denied her any eyebrows of her own, she had conceived it only decent to supply their place.

"I've got back to 'Mensonges,' Beryl," she said, as she saw Miss Van Tuyn. "After all, there's nothing like it. It bites right into one, even on a third reading."

"Dear old Fanny! I'm so glad you're being bitten into. I know how you love it, and I'm not going to disturb you. I only came to tell you that I'm going out this evening, and may possibly come back late."

"I hope you will enjoy yourself, dear, and meet pleasant people."

Miss Cronin was thoroughly well trained, and seldom asked any questions. She had long ago been carefully taught that the duty of a dame de compagnie consisted solely in being alive in a certain place—the place selected for her by the person she was dame de compagnie to. It was, after all, an easy enough profession so long as a beneficent Providence permitted your heart to beat and your lungs to function. The place at present was Claridge's Hotel. She had nothing to do except to lie comfortably in bed there. And this small feat, well within her competence, she was now accomplishing with complete satisfaction to herself. She took a happy sip of her camomile tea and added:

"But I know you always do that. You have such a wide choice and are so clever in selection."

Miss Van Tuyn slightly frowned.

"There isn't such a wide choice in London as there is in Paris," she said rather morosely.

"I dare say not. Paris is much smaller than London, but much cleverer, I think. Where would you find an author like Bourget among the English? Which of them could have written 'Mensonges'? Which of them could—"

"I know, dear, I know! They haven't the bite. That is what you mean. They have only the bark."

"Exactly! And when one sits down to a book—"

"Just so, dear. The dog that can only bark is a very dull dog. I saw a wonderful dog the other day that looked as if it could bite."

"Indeed! In London?"

"Yes. But I'm sure it wasn't English."

"Was it a poodle?"

"No, quite the contrary."

Fanny Cronin looked rather vague. She was really trying to think what dog was quite the contrary of a poodle, but, after the Channel, her mind was unequal to the effort. So she took another sip of the camomile tea and said:

"What colour was it?"

"It was all brown like a brown bronze. Well, good night, Fanny."

"Good night, dear. I really wish you would read 'Mensonges' again when I have finished with it. One cannot read over these masterpieces too often."

"You shall lend it me."

She went out of the room, and Fanny Cronin settled comfortably down once more to the competent exercise of her profession.

It was now nearly eight o'clock. Miss Van Tuyn went to her bedroom. She had a maid with her, but she did not ring for the woman. Instead she shut her door, and began to "do" things for herself. She began by taking off her gown and putting on a loose wrapper. Then she sat down before the dressing-table and changed the way in which her corn-coloured hair was done, making it sit much closer to the head than before, and look much less striking and conspicuous. The new way of doing her hair changed her appearance considerably, made her less like a Ceres and more like a Puritan. When she was quite satisfied with her hair she got out of her wrapper, and presently put on an absolutely plain black coat and skirt, a black hat which came down very low on her forehead, a black veil and black suede gloves. Then she took a tightly furled umbrella with an ebony handle out of her wardrobe, picked up her purse, unlocked her door and stepped out into the lobby.

Her French maid appeared from somewhere. She was a rather elderly woman with a clever, but not unpleasantly subtle, face. Miss Van Tuyn said a few words to her in a low voice, opened the lobby door and went out.

She took the lift, glided down, walked slowly and carelessly across the hall and passed out by the swing door.

"A taxi, madam?" said the commissionaire in livery.

She shook her head and walked away down Brook Street in the direction of Grosvenor Square.

As Craven had predicted it was a fine clear night, dry underfoot, starry overhead. If Miss Van Tuyn had had with her a chosen companion she would have enjoyed her walk. She was absolutely self-possessed, and thoroughly capable of taking care of herself. No terrors of London affected her spirit. But she was angry and bored at being alone. She felt almost for the first time in her life neglected and even injured. And she was determined to try to find out whether her strong suspicions about Lady Sellingworth and Craven were well founded. If really Craven was giving a dinner somewhere, and Lady Sellingworth was dining with friends somewhere else, she had no special reason for irritation. She might possibly be mistaken in her unpleasant conviction that both of them had something to do which they preferred to dining with her. But if they were dining together and alone she would know exactly how things were between them. For neither of them had done what would surely have been the natural thing to do if there were no desire for concealment; neither of them had frankly stated the truth about the dinner.

"If they are dining together they don't wish me to know it," Miss Van Tuyn said to herself, as she walked along Grosvenor Square and turned down Carlos Place. "For if I had known it they might have felt obliged to invite me to join them, as I was inviting them, and as I was the one who introduced Adela Sellingworth to the Bella Napoli."

And as she remembered this she felt more definitely injured. For she had taken a good deal of trouble to persuade Lady Sellingworth to dine out in Soho, had taken trouble about the food and about the music, had, in fact, done everything that was possible to make the evening entertaining and delightful to her friend. It was even she, by the way, who had beckoned Craven to their table and had asked him to join them after dinner.

And in return for all this Adela Sellingworth had carried him off, and perhaps to-night was dining with him alone at the Bella Napoli!

"These old beauties are always the most unscrupulous women in the world," thought Miss Van Tuyn, as she came into Berkeley Square. "They never know when to stop. They are never satisfied. It's bad enough to be with a greedy child, but it's really horrible to have much to do with a greedy old person. I should never have thought that Adela Sellingworth was like this."

It did not occur to her that perhaps some day she would be an old beauty herself, and even then would perhaps still want a few pleasures and joys to make life endurable to her.

In passing through Berkeley Square she deliberately walked on the left side of it, and presently came to the house where Lady Sellingworth lived. The big mansion was dark. As Miss Van Tuyn went by it she felt an access of ill-humour, and for an instant she knew something of the feeling which had often come to its owner—the feeling of being abandoned to loneliness in the midst of a city which held multitudes who were having a good time.

She walked on towards Berkeley, thought of Piccadilly, retraced her steps, turned up Hay Hill, crossed Bond Street, and eventually came into Regent Street. There were a good many people here, and several loitering men looked hard at her. But she walked composedly on, keeping at an even steady pace. At the main door of the Cafe Royal three or four men were lounging. She did not look at them as she went by. But presently she felt that she was being followed. This did not disturb her. She often went out alone in Paris on foot, though not at night, and was accustomed to being followed. She knew perfectly well how to deal with impertinent men. In Shaftesbury Avenue the man who was dogging her footsteps came nearer, and presently, though she did not turn her head, she knew that he was walking almost level with her, and that his eyes were fixed steadily on her. Without altering her pace she took a shilling out of the purse she was carrying and held it in her hand. The man drew up till he was walking by her side. She felt that he was going to speak to her. She stopped, held out the hand with the shilling in it, and said:

"Here's a shilling! Take it. I'm sorry I can't afford more than that."

As she finished speaking for the first time she looked at her pursuer, and met the brown eyes of the living bronze. He stood for an instant gazing at her veil, and then turned round and walked away in the direction of Regent Street. The shilling dropped from her hand to the pavement. She did not try to find it, but at once went on.

It was very seldom that her self-possession was shaken. It was not exactly shaken now. But the recognition of the stranger whom she had been thinking about in the man who had followed her in the street had certainly startled her. For a moment a strong feeling of disgust overcame her, and she thought of Garstin's brutal comment upon this man. Was he then really one of the horrible night loungers who abound in all great cities, one of the night birds who come out when the darkness falls with vague hopes of doing evil to their own advantage? It was possible. He must have been hanging about near the door of the Cafe Royal when she passed and watching the passers-by. He must have seen her then. Could he have recognized her? In that case perhaps he was merely an adventurous fellow who had been pushed to the doing of an impertinent thing by his strong admiration of her. As she thought this she happened to be passing a lit-up shop, a tobacconist's, which had mirrors fixed on each side of the window. She stopped and looked into one of the mirrors. No, he could not have recognized her through the veil she was wearing. She felt certain of that. But he might have been struck by her figure. He might have noticed it that night at the Cafe Royal, have fancied he recognized it to-night, and have followed her because he was curious to know whether, or not, she was the girl he had already seen and admired. And of course, as she was walking in Regent Street alone at night, he must have thought her a girl who would not mind being spoken to. It was her own fault for being so audacious, so determined always to do what she wanted to do, however unconventional, even outrageous—according to commonplace ideas—it was.

She forgave the man his impertinence and smiled as she thought of his abrupt departure. If he were really a night bird he would surely have stood his ground. He would not have been got rid of so easily. No; he would probably have coolly pocketed the shilling, and then have entered into conversation with her, have chaffed her vulgarly about her methods with admirers, and have asked her to go to a cafe or somewhere with him, and to spend the shilling and other shillings in his company.

No doubt he had been waiting for a friend at the door of the Cafe Royal, had seen her go by, and had yielded to an impulse prompting him to an adventure. He was not an Englishman or an American. She felt certain of that. And she knew very well the views many foreigners, especially Latins, even of good birth hold about the propriety of showing their admiration for women in the street.

She was glad she had had a thick veil on. If later she made acquaintance with this man, she did not wish him to know that she and the girl who had offered him a shilling were one and the same. If he knew she might be at a certain disadvantage with him.

She turned into Soho and was immediately conscious of a slightly different atmosphere. There were fewer people about and the street was not so brightly lit up, or at any rate seemed to her darker. She heard voices speaking Italian in the shadows. The lights of small restaurants glimmered faintly on the bone-dry pavement. She was nearing the Bella Napoli. Soon she heard the distant sound of guitars.

Where she was walking at this moment there was no one. She stood still for an instant considering. If Lady Sellingworth and Craven were really dining together, as she suspected, and at the Bella Napoli, she could see them from the street if they had a table near the window. If they were not seated near the window she might not be able to see them. In that case, what was she going to do?

After a moment's thought she resolved that if she did not see them from the street she would go into the restaurant and dine there alone. They would see her of course, if they were there, and would no doubt be surprised and decidedly uncomfortable. But that could not be helped. Having come so far she was determined not to go back to the hotel without making sure whether her suspicion was correct. If, on the other hand, they were dining at a table near the window she resolved not to enter the restaurant.

Having come to this decision she walked on.

The musicians were playing "O Sole mio!" And as the music grew more distinct in her ears she felt more solitary, more injured and more ill-humoured. Music of that type makes youth feel that the world ought of right to belong to it, that the old are out of place in the regions of adventure, romance and passion. That they should not hang about where they are no longer wanted, like beggars about the door of a house in which happy people are feasting.

"Such music is for me not for Adela Sellingworth," thought Miss Van Tuyn. "Let her listen to Bach and Beethoven, or to Brahms if she likes. She can have the classics and the intellectuals. But the songs of Naples are for me, not for her."

And at that moment she felt very hard, even cruel.

She came up to the restaurant. The window was lighted up brilliantly. No blind was drawn over it. There was opaque glass at the bottom, but not at the top. She was tall and could look through the glass at the top. She did so, and at once saw Lady Sellingworth and Craven.

They were sitting at her table—the table which was always reserved for her when she dined at the Bella Napoli, and at which she had entertained Lady Sellingworth; and they were talking—confidentially, eagerly, she thought. Lady Sellingworth looked unusually happy and animated, even perhaps a little younger than usual. Yes! Very old, but younger than usual! They were not eating at the moment, but were no doubt waiting for a course. Craven was leaning forward to his companion. The guitars still sounded. But these two had apparently so much to say to one another that they had neither time or inclination to listen to the music.

Miss Van Tuyn stood very still on the pavement staring into the restaurant.

But suddenly Craven, as if attracted by something, turned abruptly half round towards the window. Instantly Miss Van Tuyn moved away. He could not have seen her. But perhaps he had felt that she—or rather of course that someone—was there. For he could not possibly have felt that she, Beryl Van Tuyn, was there looking in.

After drawing back Miss Van Tuyn walked slowly away. She was considering something, debating something within herself. Should she go in and dine alone in the restaurant? By doing so she would certainly make those two who had treated her badly uncomfortable; she would probably spoil the rest of their evening. Should she do that? Some indelicate devil prompted her, urged her, to do it. It would "serve them right," she thought. Adela Sellingworth especially deserved a touch of the whip. But it would be an undignified thing to do. They would never know of course why she had come alone to the Bella Napoli! They would think that, being audaciously unconventional, she had just drifted in there because she had nothing else to do, as Craven had drifted in alone the other night. She wanted to do it. Yet she hesitated to do it.

Finally she gave up the idea. She felt malicious, but she could not quite make up her mind to dine alone where they would see her. Probably they would feel obliged to ask her to join them. But she would not join them. Nothing could induce her to do that. And was she to come over to them when coffee was brought, as Craven had come at her invitation? No; that would be a condescension unworthy of her beauty and youth. Her fierce vanity forbade it, even though her feeling of malice told her to do it.

Her vanity won. She walked on and came into Shaftesbury Avenue.

"I know what I'll do," she said to herself. "I'll go and dine upstairs at the Cafe Royal, and go into the cafe downstairs afterwards. Garstin is certain to be there."

Garstin—and others!

This time she obeyed her inclination. Not many minutes later she was seated at a table in a corner of the restaurant at the Cafe Royal, and was carefully choosing a dinner.

CHAPTER VI

The more he thought over his visit to Adela Sellingworth the more certain did Francis Braybrooke become that it had not gone off well. For once he had not played his cards to the best advantage. He felt sure that inadvertently he had irritated his hostess. Her final dismissal of the subject of young Craven's possible happiness with Beryl Van Tuyn, if circumstances should ever bring them together, had been very abrupt. She had really almost kicked it out of the conversation.

But then, she had never been fond of discussing love affairs. Braybrooke had noticed that.

As he considered the matter he began to feel rather uneasy. Was it possible that Adela Sellingworth—his mind hesitated, then took the unpleasant leap—that Adela Sellingworth was beginning to like young Craven in an unsuitable way?

Craven certainly had behaved oddly when Adela Sellingworth had been discussed between them, and when Craven had been the subject of discussion with Adela Sellingworth she had behaved curiously. There was something behind it all. Of that Braybrooke was convinced. But his perplexity and doubt increased to something like agitation a few days later when he met a well-born woman of his acquaintance, who had "gone in for" painting and living her own life, and had become a bit of a Bohemian. She had happened to mention that she had seen his friend, "that wonderful-looking Lady Sellingworth," dining at the Bella Napoli on a recent evening. Naturally Braybrooke supposed that the allusion was to the night of Lady Sellingworth's dinner with Beryl Van Tuyn, and he spoke of the lovely girl as Lady Sellingworth's companion. But his informant, looking rather surprised, told him that Lady Sellingworth had been with a very handsome young man, and, on discreet inquiry being made, gave an admirable description from the painter's point of view, of Craven.

Braybrooke said nothing, but he was secretly almost distressed. He though it such a mistake for his distinguished friend to go wandering about in Soho alone with a mere boy. It was undignified. It was not the thing. He could not understand it unless really she was losing her head. And then he remembered her past. Although he never spoke of it, and now seldom thought about it, Braybrooke knew very well what sort of woman Adela Sellingworth had been. But her dignified life of ten years had really almost wiped her former escapades out of his recollection. There seemed to be a gulf fixed between the professional beauty and the white-haired recluse of Berkeley Square. When he looked at her, sat with her now, if he ever gave a thought to her past it was accompanied, or immediately followed, by a mental question: "Was it she who did that?" or "Can she ever have been like that?"

But now Braybrooke uneasily began to remember Lady Sellingworth's past reputation and to think of the "old guard."

If she were to fall back into folly now, after what she had done ten years ago, the "old guard" would show her no mercy. Her character would be torn to pieces. He regretted very much his introduction of Craven into her life. But how could he have thought that she would fascinate a boy?

After much careful thought—for he took his social responsibilities and duties very seriously—he resolved to take action on the lines which had occurred to him when he first began to be anxious about Craven's feeling towards Adela Sellingworth; he resolved to do his best to bring Beryl Van Tun and Craven together.

The first step he took was to call on Miss Cronin when Beryl Van Tuyn was out. He went to Claridge's in inquire for Miss Van Tuyn. On ascertaining that she was not at home he sent up his name to Miss Cronin, who was practically always in the house. At any rate, Braybrooke, who had met her several times at Miss Van Tuyn's apartment in Paris, had understood so from herself. If Miss Van Tuyn needed her as a chaperon she was, of course, to be counted upon to risk taking air and exercise. Otherwise, as she frankly said, she preferred to stay quietly at home. By nature she was sedentary. Her temperament inclined her to a sitting posture, which, however, she frequently varied by definitely lying down.

On this occasion Miss Cronin was as usual in the house, and begged that Mr. Braybrooke would come up. He found her in an arm-chair—she had just vacated a large sofa—with Bourget's "Le Disciple" in her hand. Her eyebrows were rather dim, for she had caught a slight London cold which had led her to neglect them. But she was looking mildly cheerful, and was very glad to have a visitor. Though quite happy alone with Bourget she was always ready for a comfortable gossip; and she liked Francis Braybrooke.

After a few words about the cold, Bourget and Paris, Braybrooke turned the conversation to Miss Van Tuyn. He had understood that she meant only to make a short stay in London, and rather wondered about the change of plans which had brought Miss Cronin across the Channel. Miss Cronin, he soon discovered, was rather wondering too.

"Beryl seems to have been quite got hold of by London," she observed with mild surprise.

After a pause she added:

"It may be—mind I don't say it is, but it may be—the Wallace Collection."

"The Wallace Collection?" said Braybrooke.

"I believe she goes there every day. It is in Manchester Square, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes."

"Then I think it must be that. Because two or three times lately I have heard her mention Manchester Square as if it were very much on her mind. Once I remember her saying that Manchester Square was worth all the rest of London put together! And another time she said that Manchester square ought to be in Paris. That struck me as very strange, but after making inquiries I found that the Wallace Collection was situated there, or near there."

"Hertford House is in the Square."

"Then it is that. You know how wrapped up Beryl is in that kind of thing. And, of course, she knows all the Paris collections by heart. Is the Wallace Collection large? Does it contain much?"

"It contains innumerable priceless treasures," returned Braybrooke.

"Innumerable! Dear me!" murmured Fanny Cronin, managing to lift the dimly painted eyebrows in a distinctively plaintive manner. "Then I dare say we shall be here for months."

"You don't think," began Braybrooke with exquisite caution, "you don't think that possibly she may have a more human reason for remaining in London?"

Fanny Cronin made a rabbit's mouth and looked slightly bemused.

"Human!" she said. "You think Beryl could have a human reason?"

"Oh, surely, surely!"

"But she prefers bronzes to people. I assure you it is so. I have heard her say that you can never be disappointed by a really good bronze, but that men and women often distress you by their absurdities and follies."

"That sort of thing is only the outcome of a passing mood of youthful cynicism."

"Is it? I sometimes think that a born collector, like Beryl, sees more in bronze and marble than in flesh and blood. She is very sweet, but she has quite a passion for possessing."

"Is not the greatest possession of all the possession of another's human heart?" said Braybrooke impressively, and with sentiment.

"I dare say it is, but really I cannot speak from experience," said Fanny Cronin, with remarkable simplicity.

"Has it never occurred to you," continued Braybrooke, "that your lovely charge is not likely to remain always Beryl Van Tuyn?"

Miss Cronin looked startled, and slightly moved her ears, a curious habit which she sometimes indulged in under the influence of sudden emotion, and which was indicative of mental stress.

"But if Beryl ever marries," she said, "I might have to give up living in Paris! I might have to go back to America!"

She leaned forward, with her small, plump, and conspicuously freckled hands grasping the arms of her chair.

"You don't think, Mr. Braybrooke, that Beryl is not here for the Wallace Collection? You don't think that she is in love with someone in London?"

Francis Braybrooke was decidedly taken aback by this abrupt emotional outburst. He had not meant to provoke it. Indeed, in his preoccupation with Craven's affairs and Adela Sellingworth's possible indiscretions—really he knew of no gentler word to apply to what he had in mind—he had entirely forgotten that Fanny Cronin's charming profession of sitting in deep arm-chairs, reposing on luxurious sofas, and lying in perfect French beds, might, indeed would, be drastically interfered with by Miss Van Tuyn's marriage. It was very careless of him. He was inclined to blame himself almost severely.

"My dear Miss Cronin," he hastily exclaimed. "If you were ever to think of changing your—your"—he could not find the word; "condition" would not do; "state of life" suggested the Catechism; "profession" was preposterous, besides, he did not mean that—"your sofa"—he had got it—"your sofa in the Avenue Henri Martin for a sofa somewhere else, I know of at least a dozen charming houses in Paris which would gladly, I might say thankfully, open their doors to receive you."

This was really a lie. At the moment Braybrooke did not know of one. But he hastily made up his mind to be "responsible" for Fanny Cronin if anything should occur through his amiable machinations.

"Thank you, Mr. Braybrooke. You are kindness itself. So, then, Beryl is going to marry! And she never hinted it to me, although we talked over marriage only yesterday, when I gave her Bourget's views on it as expressed in his 'Physiologie de l'amour moderne.' She never said one word. She never—"

But at this point Braybrooke felt that an interruption, however rude, was obligatory.

"I have no reason whatever to suppose that Miss Van Tuyn is thinking of marriage at this moment," he said, in an almost shrill voice.

"But surely you would not frighten me without a reason," said Fanny Cronin with mild severity, sitting back again in her chair.

"Frighten you, dear Miss Cronin! I would not do that for the world. What have I said to frighten you?"

"You talked of my changing my sofa for a sofa somewhere else! If Beryl is not going to marry why should I think of changing?"

"But nothing lasts for ever. The whole world is in a state of flux."

"Really, Mr. Braybrooke! I am quite sure I am not in a state of flux!" said Miss Cronin with unusual dignity. "We American women, you must understand, have our principles and know how to preserve them."

"On my honour, I only meant that life inevitably brings with it changes. I am sure you will bear me out in that."

"I don't know about bearing you out," said Miss Cronin, looking rather helplessly at Francis Braybrooke's fairly tall and well-nourished figure. "But why should Beryl want to change? She is very happy as she is."

"I know—I know. But surely such a lovely girl is certain to marry some day. And can we wish it otherwise? Some day a man will come who knows how to appreciate her as she deserves, who understands her nature, who is ready to devote his life to fulfilling her deepest needs."

Miss Cronin suddenly looked intelligent and at the same time like a dragon. Never before had Braybrooke seen such an expression upon her face, such a stiffening of dignity to her ample figure. She sat straight up, looked him full in the face, and observed:

"I understand your meaning, Mr. Braybrooke. You wish to marry Beryl. Well, you must forgive me for saying that I think you are much too old for her."

Braybrooke had not blushed for probably at least forty years, but he blushed scarlet now, and seized his beard with a hand that looked thoroughly unstrung.

"My dear Miss Cronin!" he said, in a voice which was almost hoarse with protest. "You absolutely misunderstood me. It is much too la—I mean that I have no intention whatever of changing my condition. No, no! Let us talk of something else. So you are reading 'Le Disciple'" (he picked it up). "A very striking book! I always think it one of Bourget's very best."

He poured forth an energetic cataract of words in praise of Miss Cronin's favourite author, and presently got away without any further quite definite misunderstanding. But when he was out in the corridor on his way to the lift he indulged himself in a very unwonted expression of acrimonious condemnation.

"Damn these red-headed old women!" he muttered in his beard. "There's no doing anything with them! The idea of my going to her to propose for Miss Van Tuyn! What next, I wonder?"

When he was out in Brook Street he hesitated for a moment, then took out his watch and looked at it. Half-past three! He thought of the Wallace Collection. It seemed to draw him strangely just then. He put his watch back and walked towards Manchester Square.

He had gained the Square and was about to enter the enclosure before Hertford House by the gateway on the left, when he saw Miss Van Tuyn come out by the gateway on the right, and walk slowly towards Oxford Street in deep conversation with a small horsey-looking man, whose face he could not see, but whose back and legs, and whose dress and headgear, strongly suggested to him the ring at Newmarket and the Paddock at Ascot.

Braybrooke hesitated. The attraction of the Wallace Collection no longer drew him. Besides, it was getting late. On the other hand, he scarcely liked to interrupt an earnest tete-a-tete. If it had not been that he was exceptionally strung up at that moment he would probably have gone quietly off to one of his clubs. But who knew what that foolish old woman at Claridge's might say to Miss Van Tuyn when she reached her hotel? It really was essential in the sacred interest of truth that he should forestall Fanny Cronin. The jockey—if it was a jockey—Miss Van Tuyn was with must put up with an interruption. But the interruption must be brought about naturally. It would not do to come up behind them. That would seem too intrusive. He must manage to skip round deftly when the occasion offered, and by a piece of masterly strategy to come upon them face to face.

Seized of this intention Braybrooke did a thing he had never done before; he "dogged" two human beings, walking with infinite precaution.

His quarry presently turned into the thronging crowds of Oxford Street and made towards the Marble Arch, keeping to the right-hand pavement. Braybrooke saw his opportunity. He dodged across the road to an island, waited there till a policeman, extending a woollen thumb, stopped the traffic, then gained the opposite pavement, hurried decorously on that side towards the Marble Arch, and after a sprint of perhaps a couple of hundred yards recrossed the street almost at the risk of his life, and walked warily back towards Oxford Circus, keeping his eyes wide open.

Before many minutes had passed he discerned the graceful and athletic figure of Miss Van Tuyn coming towards him; then, immediately afterwards, he caught a glimpse of a blue shaven face with an aquiline nose beside her, and realized that the man he had taken for a jockey was Dick Garstin, the famous painter.

As Braybrooke knew everyone, he, of course, knew Garstin, and he wondered now why he had not recognized his back at Manchester Square. Perhaps his mind had been too engrossed with Fanny Cronin and the outrage at Claridge's. He only knew the painter slightly, just sufficiently to dislike him very much. Indeed, only the acknowledged eminence of the man induced Braybrooke to have anything to do with him. But one has to know publicly acclaimed geniuses or consent to be thoroughly out of it. So Braybrooke included Garstin in the enormous circle of his acquaintances, and went to his private views.

But now the recognition gave him pause, and he almost wished he had not taken so much trouble to meet Miss Van Tuyn and her companion. For he could say nothing he wanted to say while Garstin was there. And the man was so damnably unconventional, in fact, so downright rude, and so totally devoid of all delicacy, all insight in social matters, that even if he saw that Braybrooke wanted a quiet word with Miss Van Tuyn he would probably not let him have it. However, it was too late now to avoid the steadily advancing couple. Miss Van Tuyn had seen Braybrooke, and sent him a smile. In a moment he was face to face with them, and she stopped to greet him.

"I have been spending an hour at the Wallace Collection with Mr. Garstin," she said. "And quarrelling with him all the time. His views on French art are impossible."

"Ah! how are you?" said Braybrooke, addressing the painter with almost exaggerated cordiality.

Garstin nodded in his usual offhand way. He did not dislike Braybrooke. When Braybrooke was there he perceived him, having eyes, and having ears heard his voice. But hitherto Braybrooke had never succeeded in conveying any impression to the mind of Garstin. On one occasion when Braybrooke had been discussed in Garstin's presence, and Garstin had said: "Who is he?" and had received a description of Braybrooke with the additional information: "But he comes to your private views! You have known him for years!" he had expressed his appreciation of Braybrooke's personality and character by the exclamation: "Oh, to be sure! The beard with the gentleman!" Braybrooke did not know this, or he would certainly have disliked Garstin even more than he did already.

As Garstin's nod was not followed by any other indication of humanity Braybrooke addressed Miss Van Tuyn, and told her of his call at Claridge's.

"And as you were not to be found I paid a visit to Miss Cronin."

"She must have bored you very much," was the charming girl's comment. "She has the most confused mind I know."

What an opening for Braybrooke! But he could not take it because of Garstin, who stood by cruelly examining the stream of humanity which flowed past them hypnotized by the shops.

"May I—shall I be in the way if I turn back with you for a few steps?" he ventured, with the sort of side glance at Garstin that a male dog gives to another male dog while walking round and round on a first meeting. "It is such a pleasure to see you."

Here he threw very definite admiration into the eyes which he fixed on Miss Van Tuyn.

She responded automatically and begged him to accompany them.

"Dick is leaving me at the Marble Arch," she said. "The reason he gives is that he is going to take a Turkish Bath in the Harrow Road. But that is a lie that even an American girl brought up in Paris is unable to swallow. What are you really going to do, Dick?"

As she spoke she walked on, having Garstin on one side of her and Francis Braybrooke on the other.

"I'm going to have a good sweat in the Harrow Road."

Braybrooke was disgusted. It was not that he really minded the word used to indicate the process which obtains in a Turkish Bath. No; it was Garstin's blatant way of speaking it that offended his susceptibilities. The man was perpetually defying the decencies and delicacies which were as perfume in Braybrooke's nostrils.

"The doctors say that it is an excellent thing to open the pores," said Braybrooke discreetly.

Garstin cast a glance at him, as if he now saw him for the first time.

"Do you mean to tell us you believe in doctors?" he said.

"I do, in some doctors," said Braybrooke. "There are charlatans in all professions unfortunately."

"And some of them are R.A.'s," said Miss Van Tuyn. "By the way, Dick is going to paint me."

"Really! How very splendid!" said Braybrooke, again with exaggerated cordiality. "With such a subject I'm sure—"

But here he was interrupted by Garstin, who said:

"She tells everyone I'm going to paint her because she hopes by reiteration to force me to do it. But she isn't the type that interests me."

"My dear Dick, I'll gladly take to morphia or drink if it will help," said Miss Van Tuyn. "I can easily get the Cafe Royal expression. One has only to sit with a glass of something the colour of absinthe in front of one and look sea-sick. I'm perfectly certain that with a week or two's practice I could look quite as degraded as Cora."

"Cora?" said Braybrooke, alertly, hearing a name he did not know.

"She's a horror who goes to the Cafe Royal and whom Dick calls a free woman."

"Free from all the virtues, I suppose!" said Braybrooke smartly.

"Good-bye both of you!" said Garstin at this juncture.

"But we haven't got to the Marble Arch!"

"What's that got to do with it? I'm off."

He seemed to be going, then stopped, and directed the two pin-points of light at Miss Van Tuyn.

"I flatly refuse to make an Academy portrait of you, so don't hope for it," he said. "But if you come along to the studio to-morrow afternoon you may possibly find me at work on a blackmailer."

"Dick!" said Miss Van Tuyn, in a voice which startled Braybrooke.

"I don't promise," said the painter. "I don't believe in promises, unless you break 'em. But it's just on the cards."

"You are painting a blackmailer!" said Braybrooke, with an air of earnest interest. "How very original!"

"Original! Why is it original to paint a blackmailer?"

"Oh—well, one doesn't often run across them. They—they seem to keep so much to themselves."

"I don't agree with you. If they did some people would be a good deal better off than they are now."

"Ah, to be sure! That's very true. I had never looked at it in that light."

"What time, Dick?" said Miss Van Tuyn, rather eagerly.

"You might look in about three."

"I will. That's a bargain."

Garstin turned on his heel and tramped away towards Berkeley Street.

"You are going home by Park Lane?" said Braybrooke, feeling greatly relieved, but still rather upset.

"Yes. But why don't you take me somewhere to tea?"

"Nothing I should like better. Where shall we go?"

"Let's go to the Ritz. I had meant to walk, but let us take a taxi."

There was suddenly a change in Miss Van Tuyn. Braybrooke noticed it at once. She seemed suddenly restless, almost excited, and as if she were in a hurry.

"There's one!" she added, lifting her tightly furled umbrella.

The driver stopped, and in a moment they were on their way to the Ritz.

"You like Dick Garstin?" said Braybrooke, pulling up one of the windows and wondering what Miss Cronin would say if she could see him at this moment.

"I don't like him," returned Miss Van Tuyn. "No one could do that. But I admire him, and he interests me. He is almost the only man I know who is really indifferent to opinion. And he has occasional moments of good nature. But I don't wish him to be soft. If he were he would be like everyone else."

"I must confess I find it very difficult to get on with him."

"He's a wonderful painter."

"No doubt—in his way."

"I think it a great mistake for any creative artist to be wonderful in someone else's way," said Miss Van Tuyn.

"I only meant that his way is sometimes rather startling. And then his subjects! Drugged women! Dram drinking men! And now it seems even blackmailers."

"A blackmailer might have a wonderful face."

"Possibly. But it would be likely to have a disgusting expression."

"It might. On the other hand, I could imagine a blackmailer looking like Chaliapine as Mephistopheles."

"I don't like distressing art," said Braybrooke, rather firmly. "And I think there is too much of it nowadays."

"Anything is better than the merely nice. And you have far too much of that in England. Men like Dick Garstin are a violent protest against that, and sometimes they go to extremes. He has caught the secret of evil, and when he had done with it he may quite possibly catch the secret of good."

"And then," said Braybrooke, "I am sure he will paint you."

It was meant to be a very charmingly turned compliment. But Miss Van Tuyn received it rather doubtfully.

"I don't know that I want to wait quite so long as that," she murmured. "Besides—I think I rather come in between. At least, I hope so."

At this point in the conversation the cab stopped before the Ritz.

To Francis Braybrooke's intense astonishment—and it might almost be added confusion—the first person his eyes lit on as they walked towards the tea-tables was Fanny Cronin, comfortably seated in an immense arm-chair, devouring a muffin in the company of an old lady, whose determined face was completely covered with a criss-cross of wrinkles, and whose withered hands were flashing with magnificent rings. He was so taken aback that he was guilty of a definite start, and the exclamation, "Miss Cronin!" in a voice that suggested alarm.

"Oh, old Fanny with Mrs. Clem Hodson!" said Miss Van Tuyn. "She's a school friend of Fanny's from Philadelphia. Let us go to that table in the far corner. I'll just speak to them while you order tea."

"But I thought Miss Cronin never went out."

"She never does, except with Mrs. Clem, unless I want her."

"How singularly unfortunate I am to-day!" thought Braybrooke, as he bowed to Miss Cronin in a rather confused manner and went to do as he was told.

He ordered tea, then sat down anxiously to wait for Miss Van Tuyn. From his corner he watched her colloquy with the two school friends from Philadelphia, and it seemed to him that something very important was being told. For Fanny Cronin looked almost animated, and her manner approached the emphatic as she spoke to the standing girl. Mrs. Hodson seemed to take very little part in the conversation, but sat looking very determined and almost imperious as she listened. And presently Braybrooke saw her extremely observant dark eyes—small, protuberant and round as buttons—turn swiftly, with even, he thought, a darting movement, in his direction.

"I shall be driven, really driven, to make the matter quite clear," he thought, almost with desperation. "Otherwise—"

But at this moment Miss Van Tuyn came away to him, and their tea was brought by a waiter.

He thought she cast a rather satirical look at him as she sat down, but she only said;

"Dear old things! They are very happy together. Mrs. Clem is extraordinarily proud of having 'got Fanny out,' as she calls it. A boy who had successfully drawn a badger couldn't be more triumphant. Now let's forget them!"

This was all very well, and Braybrooke asked for nothing better; but he was totally unable to forget the two cronies, whom he saw in the distance with their white and chestnut heads alarmingly close together, talking eagerly, and, he was quite sure, not about the dear old days in Philadelphia. What had they—or rather what had Miss Cronin said to Miss Van Tuyn? He longed to know. It really was essential that he should know. Yet he scarcely knew how to approach the subject. It was rather difficult to explain elaborately to a beautiful girl that you had not the least wish to marry her. He was certainly not at his best as he took his first cup of tea and sought about for an opening. Miss Van Tuyn talked with her usual assurance, but he fancied that her violet eyes were full of inquiry when they glanced at him; and he began to feel positive that the worst had happened, and that Fanny Cronin had informed her—no, misinformed her—of what had happened at Claridge's. Now and then, as he met Miss Van Tuyn's eyes, he thought they were searching his with an unusual consciousness, as if they expected something very special from him. Presently, too, she let the conversation languish, and at last allowed it to drop. In the silence that succeeded Braybrooke was seized by a terrible fear that perhaps she was waiting for him to propose. If he did propose she would refuse him of course. He had no doubt about that. But though to be accepted by her, or indeed by anyone, would have caused him acute distress, on the other hand no one likes to be refused.

He thought of Craven. Was it possible to make any use of Craven to get him out of his difficulty? Dare he hint at the real reason of his visit to Miss Cronin? He had intended delicately to "sound" the chaperon on the subject of matrimony, to find out if there was anything on the tapis in Paris, if Miss Van Tuyn had any special man friend there, in short to make sure of his ground before deciding to walk on it. But he could hardly explain that to Miss Van Tuyn. To do so would be almost brutal, and quite against all his traditions.

Again he caught her eye in the desperate silence. Her gaze seemed to say to him: "When are you going to begin?" He felt that he must say something, even though it were not what she was probably expecting.

"I was interested," he hurriedly began, clasping his beard and looking away from his companion, "to hear the other day that a young friend of mine had met you, a very charming and promising young fellow, who has a great career before him, unless I am much mistaken."

"Who?" she asked; he thought rather curtly.

"Alick Craven of the Foreign Office. He told me he was introduced to you at Adela Sellingworth's."

"Oh yes, he was," said Miss Van Tuyn.

And she said no more.

"He was very enthusiastic about you," ventured Braybrooke, wondering how to interpret her silence.

"Really!"

"Yes. We belong to the same club, the St. James's. He entertained me for more than an hour with your praises."

Miss Van Tuyn looked at him with rather acute inquiry, as if she could not make up her mind about something with which he was closely concerned.

"He would like to meet you again," said Braybrooke, with soft firmness.

"But I have met him again two or three times. He called on me."

"And I understand you were together in a restaurant in—Soho, I think it was."

"Yes, we were."

"What did you think of him?" asked Braybrooke.

As he put the question he was aware that he was being far from subtle. The vision in the distance—now eating plum cake, but still very observant—upset his nervous system and deprived him almost entirely of his usual savoir faire.

"He seems quite a nice sort of boy," said Miss Van Tuyn, still looking rather coldly inquisitive, as if she were secretly puzzled but intended to emerge into complete understanding before she had done with Braybrooke. "His Foreign Office manner is rather against him. But perhaps some day he'll grow out of that—unless it becomes accentuated."

"If you knew him better I feel sure you would like him. He had no reservations about you—none at all. But, then, how could he have?"

"Well, at any rate I haven't got the Foreign Office manner."

"No, indeed!" said Braybrooke, managing a laugh that just indicated his appreciation of the remark as an excellent little joke. "But it really means nothing."

"That's a pity. One's manner should always have a meaning of some kind. Otherwise it is an absolute drawback to one's personality."

"That is perhaps a fault of the Englishman. But we must remember that still waters run deep."

"Do you think so? But if they don't run at all?"

"How do you mean?"

"There is such a thing as the village pond."

"How very trying she is this afternoon!" thought poor Braybrooke, endeavouring mentally to pull up his socks.

"I half promised Craven the other day," he lied, resolutely ignoring her unkind comparison of his protege to the abomination which is too often veiled with duckweed, "to contrive another meeting between you and him. But I fear he has bored you. And in that case perhaps I ought not to hold to my promise. You meet so many brilliant Frenchmen that I dare say our slower, but really I sometimes think deeper, mentality scarcely appeals to you."

(At this point he saw Fanny Cronin leaning impressively towards Mrs. Clem Hodson, as if about to impart some very secret information to that lady, who bent to receive it.)

"Again those deep waters!" said Miss Van Tuyn, this time with unmistakable satire. "But perhaps you are right. I remember a very brilliant American, who knew practically all the nations of Europe, telling me that in his opinion you English were the subtlest—I'm afraid he was rude enough to say the most artful—of the lot."

As she spoke the word "artful" her fine eyes smiled straight into Braybrooke's, and she pinched her red lips together very expressively.

"But I must confess," she added, "that at the moment we were discussing diplomats."

"Artful was rather unkind," murmured Braybrooke. "I—I hope you don't think my friend Craven is one of that type?"

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of Mr. Craven."

The implication was fairly obvious, and Braybrooke did not miss it, although he was not in possession of his full mental powers.

"Perhaps it is our own fault," he said. "But I think we English are often misunderstood."

As he spoke he shot a rather poignant glance in the direction of Fanny Cronin, who had now finished her tea, and was gathering her fur cloak about her as if in preparation for departure.

"In fact," he added, "I am sure of it. This very day even—"

He paused, wondering how to put it, yet feeling that he really must at all costs make matters fairly clear to his companion.

"Yes?" said Miss Van Tuyn sweetly.

"To-day, this afternoon, I think that your dear Miss Cronin failed once or twice to grasp my full meaning when I was talking with her."

"Oh, Fanny! But she's an old fool! Of course she's a dear, and I'm very fond of her, but she is essentially nebulous. And what was it that you think she misunderstood?"

Braybrooke hesitated. It really was very difficult to put what he wanted to say into words. Scarcely ever before had he felt himself so incapable of dealing adequately with a socially awkward situation. If only he knew what Miss Cronin had said to Miss Van Tuyn while he was ordering tea!

"I could scarcely say I know. I really could not put my finger upon it," he said at last. "There was a general atmosphere of confusion, or so it seemed to me. We—we discussed marriage."

"I hope the old dear didn't think you were proposing to her?"

"Good heavens—oh, no! no! I don't quite know what she thought." (He lowered his eyes.) "But it wasn't that."

"That's a mercy at any rate!"

Braybrooke still kept his eyes on the ground, but a dogged look came into his face, and he said, speaking more resolutely:

"I'm afraid I alarmed dear Miss Cronin."

"How perfectly splendid!" said Miss Van Tuyn.

"She is very fond of you."

"Much fonder of Bourget!"

"I don't think so," he said, with emphasis. "She is so devoted to you that quite inadvertently I alarmed her. After all, we were—we were"—nobly he decided to take the dreadful plunge—"we were two elderly people talking together as elderly people will, I thought quite freely and frankly, and I ventured—do forgive me—to hint that a great many men must wish to marry you; young men suited to you, promising men, men with big futures before them, anxious for a brilliant and beautiful wife."

"That was very charming and solicitous of you," said Miss Van Tuyn with a smile. "But I don't know that they do!"

"Do what?" said Braybrooke, almost losing his head, as he saw the vision in the distance, now cloaked and gloved, rustling in an evident preparation for something, which might be departure or might on the other hand be approach.

She observed him with a definite surprise, which she seemed desirous of showing.

"I was alluding to the promising men," she said.

"Which men?" asked Braybrooke, still hypnotized by the vision.

"The men with big futures before them who you were kind enough to tell Fanny were longing to marry me."

"Oh, yes!" (With a great effort he pulled himself together.) "Those men to be sure!"

The vision was now standing up and apparently disputing the bill, for it was evidently talking at great length to a man in livery, who had a slip of paper in his hand, and who occasionally pointed to it in a resentful manner and said something, whereupon the vision made negative gestures and there was much tossing and shaking of heads. Resolutely Braybrooke looked away. It was nothing to do with him even if the Ritz was trying to make an overcharge for plum cake.

"I just hinted that there must be men who—but you understand?"

Miss Van Tuyn smiled unembarrassed assent.

"And then Miss Cronin"—he lowered his voice—"seemed thoroughly upset. I scarcely knew what she thought I meant, but whatever it was I had not meant it. That is certain. But the fact is she is so devoted to you that the mere fact of your some day doing what all lovely and charming women are asked to do and usually consent to do—but—but Miss Cronin seems to—I think she wants to say something to you."

Miss Van Tuyn looked suddenly rather rebellious. She did not glance towards the Philadelphia school friends, but turned her shoulder towards them and said:

"Naturally my marriage would make a great difference to Fanny, but I have never known her to worry about it."

"She is worrying now!" said poor Braybrooke, with earnest conviction. "But really she—I am sure she wishes to speak to you."

The line showed itself in Miss Van Tuyn's forehead.

"Will you be kind and just go and ask her what she wants? Please tell her that I am not coming back yet as I am going to call on Lady Sellingworth when I leave here."

Braybrooke got up, trying to conceal his reluctance to obey. Miss Cronin, entrenched as it were behind her old school friend, and with dawnings of the dragon visible beneath her feathered hat, and even, strangely, mysteriously, underneath her long cloak of musquash, was endeavouring by signs and wonders to attract her Beryl's attention, while Mrs. Clem Hodson stood looking imperious, and ready for any action that would prove her solidarity with her old schoolmate.

"What she wants—and you are going to call on Lady Sellingworth!" said Braybrooke.

"Yes; and to-night I'm dining out."

"Dining out to-night—just so."

There was no further excuse for delay, and he went towards the two old ladies, a grievous ambassador. It really had been the most unpleasant afternoon he remembered to have spent. He began to feel almost in fault, almost as if he had done—or at the least had contemplated doing—something outrageous, something for which he deserved the punishment which was now being meted out to him. As he slowly approached Miss Cronin he endeavoured resolutely to bear himself like a man who had not proposed that day for Miss Van Tuyn's hand. But preposterously, Miss Cronin's absurd misconception seemed to have power over his conscience, and that again over his appearance and gait. He was fully aware, as he went forward to convey Miss Van Tuyn's message, that he made a very poor show of it. In fact, he was just then living up to Dick's description of him as "the beard with the gentleman."

"Oh, Mr. Braybrooke," said Miss Cronin as he came up, "so you are here with Beryl!"

"Yes; so I am here with Miss Van Tuyn!"

Miss Cronin exchanged a glance with Mrs. Clem Hodson.

"You didn't tell me when you called that you were taking her out to tea!"

"No, I didn't!" said Braybrooke.

"This is my old schoolmate, Mrs. Clem Hodson. Suzanne, this is Mr. Braybrooke, a friend of Beryl's."

Mrs. Clem Hodson bowed from the waist, and looked at Braybrooke with the expression of one who knew a great deal more about him than his own mother knew.

"This hotel overcharges," she said firmly.

"Really! I should have scarcely have thought—"

"There were two pieces of plum cake on the bill, and we only ate one."

"Oh, I've just remembered," said Miss Cronin, as if irradiated with sudden light.

"What, dear?"

"I did have two slices. One was before the muffin, while we were waiting for it, and the other was after. And I only remembered the second."

"In that case, dear, we've done the waiter an injustice and libelled the hotel."

"I will make it all right if you will allow me," said Braybrooke almost obsequiously. "I'm well known here. I will explain to the manager, a most charming man."

He turned definitely to face Fanny Cronin.

"Miss Van Tuyn asked me to tell you what she wants."

"Indeed! Does she want something?"

"No. I mean she told me to ask you what you want."

Miss Cronin looked at Mrs. Clem Hodson, hesitated, and then made a very definite rabbit's mouth.

"I don't know that I want anything, thank you, Mr. Braybrooke. But if Beryl is going—she is not going?"

"I really don't know exactly."

"She hasn't finished her tea, perhaps?"

"I don't know for certain. But she asked me to tell you she wasn't coming back yet"—the two old ladies exchanged glances which Braybrooke longed to contradict—"as she is going to call on Lady Sellingworth presently."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Clem Hodson, gazing steadily at Fanny Cronin.

"In Berkeley Square!" added Braybrooke emphatically. "And to-night she is dining out."

"Did she say where?" asked Miss Cronin, slightly moving her ears.

"No; she didn't."

"Thank you," said Miss Cronin. "Good-bye, Mr. Braybrooke."

She held out her hand like one making a large and difficult concession to her own Christianity. Mrs. Clem Hodson bowed again from the waist and also made a concession. She muttered, "Very glad to have met you!" and then cleared her throat, while the criss-cross of wrinkles moved all over her face.

"I will make it all right with the manager," said Braybrooke, with over-anxious earnestness, and feeling now quite definitely that he must really have proposed to Miss Cronin for Miss Van Tuyn's hand that afternoon, and that he must have just lied about the disposal of her time until she had to dress for dinner.

"The manager?" said Miss Cronin.

"What manager?" said Mrs. Clem Hodson.

"About the plum cake! Surely you remember?"

"Oh—the plum cake!" said Mrs. Hodson, looking steadily at Fanny Cronin. "Thank you very much indeed! Very good of you!"

"Thank you," said Miss Cronin, with a sudden piteous look. "I did eat two slices. Come, Suzanne! Good-bye again, Mr. Braybrooke."

They turned to go out. As Braybrooke watched the musquash slowly vanishing he knew in his bones that, when he did not become engaged to Miss Van Tuyn, Fanny Cronin, till the day of her death, would feel positive that he had proposed to her that afternoon and had been rejected. And he muttered in his beard:

"Damn these red-headed old women! I will not make it all right with the manager about the plum cake!"

It was a poor revenge, but the only one he could think of at the moment.

"Is anything the matter?" asked Miss Van Tuyn when he rejoined her. "Has old Fanny been tiresome?"

"Oh, no—no! But old Fan—I beg your pardon, I mean Miss Cronin—Miss Cronin has a peculiar—but she is very charming. I gave her your message, and she quite understood. We were talking about plum cake. That is why I was so long."

"I see! A fascinating subject like that must be difficult to get away from."

"Yes—very! What a delightful woman Mrs. Hodson is."

"I think her extremely wearisome. Her nature is as wrinkled as her face. And now I must be on my way to Adela Sellingworth's."

"May I walk with you as far as her door?"

"Of course."

When they were out in Piccadilly he said:

"And now what about my promise to Mr. Craven?"

"I shall be delighted to meet him again," said Miss Van Tuyn in a careless voice. "And I would not have you break a promise on my account. Such a sacred thing!"

"But if he bores you—"

"He doesn't bore me more than many young men do."

"Then I will let you know. We might have a theatre party."

"Anything you like. And why not ask Adela Sellingworth to make a fourth?"

This suggestion was not at all to Braybrooke's liking, but he scarcely knew what to say in answer to it. Really, it seemed as if this afternoon was to end as it had begun—in a contretemps.

"I am so fond of her," continued Miss Van Tuyn. "And I'm sure she would enjoy it."

"But she so seldom goes out."

"All the more reason to try to persuade her out of her shell. I believe she will come if you tell her I and Mr. Craven make up the rest of the party. We all got on so well together in Soho."

"I will certainly ask her," said Braybrooke.

What else could he say?

At the corner of Berkeley Square Miss Van Tuyn stopped and rather resolutely bade him good-bye.

When Braybrooke was alone he felt almost tired out. If he had been an Italian he would probably have believed that someone had looked on him that day with the evil eye. He feared that he had been almost maladroit. His social self-confidence was severely shaken. And yet he had only meant well; he had only been trying to do what he considered his duty. It had all begun with Miss Cronin's preposterous mistake. That had thoroughly upset him, and from that moment he had not been in possession of his normal means. And now he was let in for a party combining Adela Sellingworth with Miss Van Tuyn and Craven. It was singularly unfortunate. But probably Lady Sellingworth would refuse the invitation he now had to send her. She really went out very seldom. He could only hope for a refusal. That, too, was tragic. He could not remember ever before having actively wished that an invitation of his should be declined.

He was so reduced in self-confidence and spirits that he turned into the St. James's Club, sank down alone in a remote corner, and called for a dry Martini, although he knew quite well that it would set up fermentation.

PART FOUR

CHAPTER I

Lady Sellingworth was "not at home" when Miss Van Tuyn called, though no doubt she was in the house, and the latter left her card, on which she wrote in pencil, "So sorry not to find you. Do let us meet again soon. I may not be in London much longer." When she wrote the last sentence she was really thinking of Paris with a certain irritation of desire. In Paris she always had a good, even a splendid, time. London was treating her badly. Perhaps it was hardly worth while to stay on. She had many adorers in Paris, and no elderly women there ever got in her way. Frenchmen never ran after elderly women. She could not conceive of any young Frenchman doing what Craven had done if offered the choice between a girl of twenty-two and a woman of sixty. Englishmen really were incomprehensible. Was it worth while to bother about them? Probably not. But she was by nature combative as well as vain, and Craven's behaviour had certainly given him a greater value in her estimation. If he had done the quite ordinary thing, and fallen in love with her at once, she might have been pleased and yet have thought very little of him. He would then have been in a class with many others. Now he was decidedly in a class by himself. If he loved he would not be an ordinary lover. She was angry with him. She intended some day to punish him. But he puzzled her, and very definitely now he attracted her.

No; really she would not go back to Paris of the open arms and the comprehensible behaviour without coming to conclusions with Craven. To do so would be to retreat practically beaten from the field, and she had never yet acknowledged a defeat.

Besides, she had something in prospect, something that for the moment, at any rate, would hold her in London even without the attraction, half repellent, of Craven. Evidently Dick Garstin, for whatever reason, had done something, or was about to do something, for her. Always he managed to be irritating. It was just like him to spend two hours alone with her without saying one word about the living bronze, and then to rouse her curiosity when it was impossible that it should be gratified owing to the presence of Braybrooke. Garstin could never do anything in a pleasant and comfortable way. He must always, even in kindness, be semi-malicious. There was at times something almost Satanic in his ingenious avoidance of the common humanities. But it seemed that he was about to comply with her expressed whim. He had surely spoken to the Cafe Royal man, and had perhaps already received from him a promise to visit the studio.

She had not seen the stranger again. He had not been at the Cafe Royal on the night when she had dined there alone. But Garstin must have seen him again, unless, indeed, Garstin was being absolutely disgusting, was condescending to a cheap and vulgar hoax.

That was just possible. But somehow she believed in Garstin this time. She felt almost sure that he had done what she wished, and that to-morrow afternoon in Glebe Place she would meet the man to whom she had offered the shilling.

That would be distinctly amusing. She felt on the edge of a rather uncommon adventure.

On the following day, very soon after three, she pushed the bell outside Garstin's studio door in Glebe Place. It was not answered immediately, and, feeling impatient, she rang again without waiting long. Garstin opened the door, and smiled rather maliciously on seeing her.

"What a hurry you're in!" he said. "Come along in, my girl."

As he shut the heavy door behind her she turned in the lobby and said:

"Well, Dick?"

"I'm working in the upstairs studio," he returned blandly.

"What are you at work on?"

"Go up and you'll see for yourself."

She hastened through the studio on the ground floor, which was hung with small landscapes, and sketches in charcoal, and audacious caricatures of various well-known people. At the end of it was a short and wide staircase. She mounted it swiftly, and came into another large studio built out at the back of the building. Here Garstin worked on his portraits, and here she expected to come face to face with the living bronze. As she drew near to the entrance of the studio she felt positive that he was waiting for her. But when she reached it and looked quickly and expectantly round she saw at once that the great room was empty. Only the few portraits on easels and on the pale walls looked at her with the vivid eyes which Garstin knew how to endow with an almost abnormal life.

Evidently Garstin had stopped below for a moment in the ground floor studio, but she now heard his heavy tramp on the stairs behind her and turned almost angrily.

"Dick, is this intended for a joke?"

"What do you mean by 'this'?"

"You know! Have you brought me here under false pretences? You know quite well why I came."

"Why don't you take off your hat?"

But for once Miss Van Tuyn's vanity was not on the alert; for once she did not care whether Garstin admired her head or not.

"I shall not take off my hat," she said brusquely. "I don't intend to stay unless there is the reason which I expected and which induced me to come here. Have you seen that remarkable-looking man again or not?"

"I have," said Garstin with a mischievous smile.

Miss Van Tuyn looked slightly mollified, but still uncertain.

"Did you speak to him?" she asked.

"I did."

"What did he say?"

"I told him to come along to the studio."

"You did! And—?"

"Why don't you take off your hat?"

"Because it suits me particularly well. Now tell me at once, don't be malicious and tiresome—are you expecting him?"

"I couldn't say that."

"You are not expecting him!"

"My good girl, we expect from those we rely on. What do I know about this fellow's character? I told him who I was, and what I wanted with him, and that I wanted it with him at three this afternoon. He's got the address. But whether we have any reason to expect him is more than I can say."

She looked quickly at the watch on her wrist.

"It is past three. I was late."

After an instant of silence she sat down on an old-fashioned sofa covered with dull green and red silk. Just behind it on an easel stood a half-finished portrait of the Cora woman, staring with hungry eyes over an empty tumbler.

"Give me a cigarette, Dick," she said. "Did he say he would come?"

The painter went over to an old Spanish cabinet and rummaged for a box of cigarettes, with his horsey-looking back turned towards her.

"Did he?" she repeated. "Can't you tell me what happened when you spoke to him? Why force me to cross-examine you in this indelicate way?"

"Here you are!" said Garstin, turning round with a box of cigarettes.

"Thank you."

"I gave him my name."

"He knew it, of course?"

"He didn't say so. There was no celebrity-start of pleasure. I had to explain that I occasionally painted portraits and that I wished to make a study of his damned remarkable head. Upon that he handed me his card. Here it is."

And Garstin drew out of a side pocket a visiting-card, which he gave to Miss Van Tuyn.

She read: "Nicolas Arabian."

There was no address in the corner.

"What a curious name!"

She sat gazing at the card and smoking her cigarette.

"Do you know where he is staying?"

"No."

"Did you speak English to him?"

"I did."

"And he spoke good English?"

"Yes, with a foreign accent of some kind."

At this moment an electric bell sounded below.

"There he is!" said Miss Van Tuyn, quickly giving back the card to Garstin, who dropped it into his pocket. "Do go down quickly and let him in, or he may think it is all a hoax and go away."

The painter stood looking at her keenly, with his hands in his pockets and his strong, thin legs rather wide apart.

"Well, at any rate you're damned unconventional!" he said. "At this moment you even look unconventional. What are your eyes shining about?"

"Dick—do go!"

She laid a hand on his arm. There was a strong grip in her fingers.

"This is a little adventure. And I love an adventure," she said.

"I only hope it ends badly," said Garstin, as he turned towards the staircase. "He's more patient than you. He hasn't rung twice."

"I believe he's gone away," she said, almost angrily as he disappeared down the stairs.

She got up. There was a grand piano in the studio at the far end. She moved as if she were going towards it, then returned and went to the head of the stairs. She heard the front door open and listened. Dick Garstin's big bass voice said in an offhand tone:

"Halloh! Thought you weren't coming! Glad to see you. Come along in!"

"I know I am late," said a warm voice—the voice of a man. "For me this place has been rather difficult to find. I am not well acquainted with the painters' quarter of London."

A door banged heavily. Then Miss Van Tuyn heard steps, and again the warm voice saying:

"I see you do caricatures. Or are these not by you?"

"Every one of them!" said Garstin. "Except that. That's a copy I made of one of Leonardo's horrors. It's fine. It's a thing to live with."

"Leonardo—ah, yes!" said the voice.

"I wonder if that man has ever heard of Leonardo?" was Miss Van Tuyn's thought just then.

"Up those stairs right ahead of you," said Garstin.

Miss Van Tuyn quickly drew back and sat down again on the sofa. An instant after she had done so the living bronze appeared at the top of the stairs, and his big brown eyes rested on her. No expression either of surprise, or of anything else, came into his face as he saw her. And she realized immediately that whatever else this man was he was supremely self-possessed. Yet he had turned away from her shilling. Why was that? In that moment she began to wonder about him. He stood still, waiting for Garstin to join him. As he did this he looked formal but amazingly handsome, though there were some lines about his eyes which she had not noticed in the Cafe Royal. He was dressed in a dark town suit and wore a big double-breasted overcoat. He was holding a black bowler hat, a pair of thick white gloves and a silver-topped stick. As Garstin joined him, Miss Van Tuyn slowly got up from her sofa.

"A friend of mine—Beryl Van Tuyn," said Garstin. "Come to have a look round at what I'm up to." (He glanced at Miss Van Tuyn.) "Mr. Arabian," he added. "Take off your coat, won't you? Throw it anywhere."

Arabian bowed to Miss Van Tuyn, still looking formal and as if she were a total stranger whom he had never set eyes on before. She bowed to him. As she did so she thought that he was a little older than she had supposed. He was certainly over thirty. She wondered about his nationality and suspected that very mixed blood ran in his veins. Somehow, in spite of his quite extraordinary good looks, she felt almost certain that he was not a pure type of any nation. In her mind she dubbed him on the spot "a marvellous mongrel."

He obeyed Garstin's suggestion, took off his coat, and laid it with his hat, gloves and stick on a chair close to the staircase. Then for the first time he spoke to Miss Van Tuyn, who was still standing.

"I always love a studio, mademoiselle," he said, "and when Mr. Dick Garstin"—he pronounced the name with careful clearness—"was good enough to invite me to his I was very thankful. His pictures are famous."

"You've been getting me up," said Garstin bluntly. "Reading 'Who's Who'!"

Arabian raised his eyebrows.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Don't be absurd and put on false modesty, Dick," said Miss Van Tuyn. "As if you weren't known to everyone!"

It was the first time she had spoken in Arabian's hearing since the episode in Shaftesbury Avenue, and, as she uttered her first words, she thought she detected a faint and fleeting look of surprise—it was like a mental start made visible—slip over his face, like a ray of pale light slipping over a surface. Immediately afterwards a keen expression came into his eyes, and he looked rather more self-possessed than before, rather harder even.

"Everyone, of course, knows your name, Mr. Dick Garstin, as mademoiselle says."

"Right you are!" said Garstin gruffly. "Glad to hear it!"

He now directed the two pin-points of light to the new visitor, stared at him with almost cruel severity, and yet with a curiously inward look, frowning and lifting his long pursed lips, till the upper lip was pressed against the bottom of his beaked nose.

"Are you going to allow me to paint you?" he said. "That's what I'm after. I should like to do a head and bust of you. I could make something of it—something—yes!"

He still stared with concentrated attention, and suddenly a faint whistle came from his lips. Without removing his eyes from Arabian he whistled several times a little tune of five notes, like the song of a thrush. Arabian meanwhile returned his gaze rather doubtfully, slightly smiling.

"Ever been painted?" said Garstin at last.

"No, never. Once I have sat to a sculptor for the figure. But that was when I was very young. I was something of an athlete as a boy."

"I should say so," said Garstin. "Well, what do you think, eh?"

Miss Van Tuyn had sat down on the sofa again, and was lighting another cigarette. She looked at the two men with interest. She now knew that what Garstin had done he had really done for himself, not for her. As he had said, he did not paint for the pleasure of others, but only for reasons of his own. Apparently he would never gratify her vanity. But he gratified something else in her, her genuine love of talent and the ruthlessness of talent. There was really something of the great man in Garstin, and she appreciated it. She admired him more than she liked him. Even in her frequent irritation against him she knew what he genuinely was. At this moment something in her was sharply disappointed. But something else in her was curiously satisfied.

In reply to Garstin's question Arabian asked another question.

"You wish to make a portrait of me?"

"I do—in oils."

"Will it take long?"

"I couldn't say. I might be a week over it, or less, or more. I shall want you every day."

"And when it is done?" said Arabian. "What happens to it?"

"If it's up to the mark—my mark—I shall want to exhibit it."

Arabian said nothing for a moment. He seemed to be thinking rather seriously, and presently his large eyes turned towards Miss Van Tuyn for an instant, almost, she thought, as if they wished to consult her, to read in her eyes something which might help him to a decision. She felt that the man was flattered by Garstin's request, but she felt also that something—she did not know what—held him back from granting it. And again she wondered about him.

What was he? She could not divine. She looked at him and felt that she was looking at a book not one of whose pages she could read. And yet she thought he had what is sometimes called an "open" face. There was nothing sly in the expression of his eyes. They met other eyes steadily, sometimes with a sort of frank audacity, sometimes with—apparently—an almost pleading wistfulness.

Finally, as if coming to a conclusion as to what he considered it wise to do for the moment, Arabian said:

"Excuse me, but are these pictures which I see portraits painted by you?"

"Every one of them," said Garstin, rather roughly and impatiently.

"Will you allow me to look at them?"

"They're there to be looked at."

Again Arabian glanced at Miss Van Tuyn. She got up from the sofa quickly.

"I will show Mr. Arabian the pictures," she said.

She had noticed the cloud lowering on Garstin's face and knew that he was irritated by Arabian's hesitation. As Garstin had once said to her he could be "sensitive," although his manners were often rough, and his face was what is usually called a "hard" face. And he was quite unaccustomed to meet with any resistance, even with any hesitation, when he was disposed to paint anyone, man or woman. Besides, the fact of Arabian's arrival at the studio had naturally led Garstin to expect compliance with his wish already expressed at the Cafe Royal. He was now obviously in a surly temper, and Miss Van Tuyn knew from experience that when resisted he was quite capable of an explosion. How, she wondered, would Arabian face an outburst from Garstin? She could not tell. But she thought it wise if possible to avoid anything disagreeable. So she came forward smiling.

"That will be very kind," said Arabian, in his soft and warm voice, and with his marked but charming foreign accent. "I am not expert in these matters."

Garstin pushed up his lips in a sort of sneer. Miss Van Tuyn sent him a look, and for once he heeded a wish of hers.

"I'll be back in a minute," he said. "Have a good stare at my stuff, and if you don't like it—why, damn it, you're free to say so."

Miss Van Tuyn's look had sent him away down the stairs to the ground floor studio. Arabian had not missed her message, but he was apparently quite impassive, and did not show that he had noticed the painter's ill humour.

For the first time Miss Van Tuyn was quite alone with the living bronze.

"Do you know much about pictures?" she asked him.

"Not very much," he answered, with a long, soft look at her. "I have only one way to judge them."

"And what way is that?"

"If they are portraits, I mean."

"Yes?"

"I judge them by their humanity. One does not want to be made worse than one is in a picture."

"I'm afraid you won't like Dick Garstin's work," she said decisively.

She was rather disappointed. Had this audaciously handsome man a cult for the pretty-pretty?

"Let us see!" he replied, smiling.

He looked round the big studio. As he did so she noticed that he had an extraordinarily quick and all-seeing glance, and realized that in some way, in some direction, he must be clever, even exceptionally clever. There were some eight to ten portraits in the studio, a few finished, others half finished or only just begun. Arabian went first to stand before the finished portrait of a girl of about eighteen, whose face was already plainly marked—blurred, not sharpened—by vice. Her youth seemed obscured by a faint fog of vice—as if she had projected it, and was slightly withdrawn behind it. Arabian looked at her in silence. Miss Van Tuyn watched him, standing back, not quite level with him. And she saw on his face an expression that suggested to her a man contemplating something he was very much at home with.

"That is a bad girl!" was his only comment, as he moved on to the next picture.

This was also the portrait of a woman, but of a woman well on in life, an elderly and battered siren of the streets, wrecked by men and by drink. Only the head and bust were shown, a withered head crowning a bust which had sunken in. There was an old pink hat set awry on the head. From beneath it escaped coarse wisps of almost orange-coloured hair. The dull, small eyes were deep-set under brows which looked feverish. A livid spot of red glowed almost like a torch-end on each high cheek-bone. The mouth had fallen open.

Arabian examined this tragedy, which was one of Garstin's finest bits of work in Miss Van Tuyn's estimation, with careful and close attention, but without showing the faintest symptom of either pity or disgust.

"In my opinion that is well painted," was his comment. "They do get to be like that. And then they starve. And that is because they have no brains."

"Garstin swears that woman must once have been very beautiful," said Miss Van Tuyn.

"Oh—quite possible," said Arabian.

"Well, I can't conceive it."

He turned and gave her a long, steady look, full of softness and ardour.

"It would be very sad if you could," he said. "Excuse me, but are you American?"

"Yes."

"Well, Americans never get like that. They are too practical."

"And not romantic—do you mean?" she said, not without irony.

"They can be romantic, but they save themselves from disaster with their practical sense. I hope I put it right."

She smiled at him.

"You speak very good English. What do you think of this?"

"But I have seen her!" he said.

They had come to the easel on which was the half-finished portrait of Cora, staring across her empty glass.

"She goes to the Cafe Royal."

He looked again at Miss Van Tuyn.

"Do you ever go there?" he asked gravely.

"No, never," she said with calm simplicity, returning his gaze.

"Well she—that woman—sits there alone just like that. She has a purpose. She is waiting for someone to come in who will come some night. And she knows that, and will wait, like a dog before a hole which contains something he intends to kill. This Mr. Dick Garstin is very clever. He is more than a painter; he is an understander."

"Ah!" she said, intimately pleased by this remark. "You do appreciate him! Garstin is great because he paints not merely for the eye that looks for a sort of painted photograph, but for the eye that demands a summing up of character."

Arabian looked sideways at her.

"What is that—of character, mademoiselle?"

"A summing up! That is a presentation of the sum total of the character."

"Oh, yes."

He looked again at Cora.

"One knows what she is by that," he said.

Then, standing still, he looked rapidly all round the studio, glancing first at one portrait then at another, with eyes which despite their lustrous softness, seemed to make a sort of prey of whatever they lighted on.

"But they are all women and all of a certain world!" he said, almost suspiciously. "Why is that?"

"Garstin is passing through a phase just now. He paints from the Cafe Royal."

"Oh!"

He paused, and his brown face took on a look of rather hard meditation.

"Does he never paint what they call decent people?" he inquired. "One may occasionally spend an hour at the Cafe Royal—especially if one is not English—without belonging to the bas-fonds. I do not know whether Mr. Dick Garstin understands that."

"Of course he does," she said, instantly grasping the meaning of his hesitation. "But there is one portrait—of a man—which I don't think you have looked at."

"Where?"

"On that big easel with its back to us. If you want a decent person"—she spoke with a slightly ironical intonation—"go and see what Garstin can do with decency."

"I will."

And he walked over to the side of the room opposite to the grand piano, and went to stand in front of the easel she had indicated. She stood where she was and watched him. For two or three minutes he looked at the picture in silence, and she thought his expression had become slightly hostile. His audacious and rather thick lips were set together firmly, almost too firmly. His splendid figure supple, athletic and harmonious, looked almost rigid. She wondered what he was feeling, whether he disliked the portrait of the judge of the Criminal Court at which he was looking. Finally he said:

"I think Mr. Dick Garstin is a humorist. Do not you?"

"But—why?"

"To put this gentleman in the midst of all the law breakers."

Miss Van Tuyn crossed the room and joined him in front of the picture, which showed the judge seated in his wig and robes.

"And that is not all," added Arabian. "This man's business is to judge others, naughty people who do God knows what, and, it seems, have to be punished sometimes. Is it not?"

"Yes, to be sure."

"But Mr. Dick Garstin when painting him is saying to himself all the time, 'And he is naughty, too! And who is going to put on wig and red clothes and tell him he, too, deserves a few months of prison?' Now is not that true, mademoiselle? Is not that man bad underneath the judge's skin? And has not Mr. Dick Garstin found this out, and does not he use all his cleverness to show it?"

Miss Van Tuyn looked at Arabian with a stronger interest than any she had shown yet. It was quite true. Garstin had a peculiar faculty for getting at the lower parts of a character and for bringing it to the surface in his portraits. Perhaps in the exercise of this faculty he showed his ingrained cynicism, sometimes even his malice. Arabian had, it seemed, immediately discovered the painter's predominant quality as a psychologist of the brush.

"You are quite right," she said. "One feels that someone ought to judge that judge."

"That is more than a portrait of one man," said Arabian. "It is a portrait of the world's hypocrisy."

In saying this his usually soft voice suddenly took on an almost biting tone.

"The question is," he added, "whether one wishes to be painted as bad when perhaps one is not so bad. Many people, I think, might fear to be painted by this very famous Mr. Dick Garstin."

"Would you be afraid to be painted by him?" she said.

He cast a sharp glance at her with eyes which looked suddenly vigilant.

"I did not say that."

"He'll be furious if you refuse."

"I see he is accustomed generally to have what he wishes."

"Yes. And he would make a magnificent thing of you. I am certain of that."

She saw vanity looking out of his eyes, and her vanity felt suddenly almost strangely at home with it.

"It is a compliment, I know, that he should wish to paint me," said Arabian. "But why does he?"

The question sounded to Miss Van Tuyn almost suspicious.

"He admires your appearance," she answered. "He thinks you a very striking type."

"Ah! A type! But what of?"

"He didn't tell me," she answered.

Arabian was silent for a moment; then he said:

"Does Mr. Dick Garstin get high prices for his portraits? Are they worth a great deal?"

"Yes," she said, with a sudden light touch of disdain, which she could not forego. "The smallest sketch of a head painted by him will fetch a lot of money."

"Ah—indeed!"

"Let him paint you! There he is—coming back."

As Garstin reappeared Arabian turned to him with a smile that looked cordial and yet that seemed somehow wanting in real geniality.

"I have seen them all."

"Have you? Well, let's have a drink."

He went over to the Spanish cabinet and brought out of it a flagon of old English glass ware, soda-water, and three tall tulip-shaped glasses with long stems.

"Come on. Let's sit down," he said, setting them down on a table. "I'll get the cigars. Squat here, Beryl. Here's a chair for you, Arabian. Help yourselves."

He moved off and returned with a box of his deadly cigars. Arabian took one without hesitation, and accepted a stiff whisky and soda. While he had been downstairs Garstin had apparently recovered his good humour, or had deliberately made up his mind to take a certain line with his guest from the Cafe Royal. He said nothing about his pictures, made no further allusion to his wish to paint Arabian's portrait, but flung himself down, lit a cigar, and began to drink and smoke and talk, very much as if he were in the bar of an inn with a lot of good fellows. When he chose Garstin could be human and genial, at times even rowdy. He was genial enough now, but Miss Van Tuyn, who was very sharp about almost everything connected with people, thought of a patient's first visit to a famous specialist, and of the quarter of an hour so often apparently wasted by the great physician as he talks about topics unconnected with symptoms to his anxious visitor. She was certain that Garstin was determined to paint Arabian whether the latter was willing to be painted or not, and she was equally certain that already Garstin had begun to work on his sitter, not with brushes but with the mind. For his own benefit, and incidentally for hers, Garstin was carelessly, but cleverly, trying to find out things about Arabian, not things about his life, but things about his education, and his mind and his temperament. He did not ask him vulgar questions. He just talked, and watched, and occasionally listened in the midst of the cigar smoke, and often with the whisky at his lips.

She had refused to take any whisky, but smoked cigarette after cigarette quickly, nervously almost. She was enjoying herself immensely, but she felt unusually excited, mentally restless, almost mentally agitated. Her usual coolness of mind had been changed into a sort of glow by Garstin and the living bronze. She always liked being alone with men, hearing men talk among themselves or talking with them free from the presence of women. But to-day she was exceptionally stimulated for she was exceptionally curious. There was something in Arabian which vaguely troubled her, and which also enticed her almost against her will. And now she was following along a track, pioneered by a clever and cunning leader.

Garstin talked about London, which Arabian apparently knew fairly well, though he said he had never lived long in London; then about Paris, which Arabian also knew and spoke of like a man who visited it now and then for purposes of pleasure. Then Garstin spoke of the art he followed, of the old Italian painters and of the Galleries of Italy. Arabian became very quiet. His attitude and bearing were those of one almost respectfully listening to an expert holding forth on a subject he had made his own. Now and then he said something non-committal. There was no evidence that he had any knowledge of Italian pictures, that he could distinguish between a Giovanni Bellini and a Raphael, tell a Luini from a Titian.

Miss Van Tuyn wondered again whether he had ever heard of Leonardo.

Garstin mentioned some Paris painters of the past, but of more recent times than those of the grand old Italians, spoke of Courbet, of Manet, of Renoir, Guilaumin, Sisley, the Barbizon school, Cezanne and his followers. Finally he came to the greatest of the French Impressionist painters, to Pissaro, for whom, as Miss Van Tuyn knew, he had an admiration which amounted almost to a cult.

"He's a glorious fellow, isn't he?" he said in his loud bass voice to Arabian. "You know his 'Pont Neuf,' of course?"

He did not wait for an answer, but drove on with immense energy, puffing away at his cigar and turning his small, keen eyes swiftly from Arabian to Miss Van Tuyn and back again. The talk, which was now a monologue, fed by frequent draughts of the excellent whisky, included a dissertation on Pissaro's oil paintings, his water-colours, his etchings and lithographs, his pupils, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin, his friendships, his troubles, and finally a paean on his desperate love of work, which was evidently shared by the speaker.

"Work—it's the thing in life!" roared Garstin. "It's the great consolation for all the damnableness of the human existence. Work first and the love of women second!"

"Thank you very much for your chivalry, Dick," said Miss Van Tuyn, sending one of her most charming blue glances to the living bronze, who returned it, almost eagerly, she thought.

"And the love of women betrays," continued Garstin. "But work never lets you down."

He flung out his right arm and quoted sonorously from Pissaro: "I paint portraits because doing it helps me to live!" he almost shouted. "Another cigar!" He turned to Arabian.

"Thank you. They are beauties and not too strong."

"You've got a damned strong constitution if you can say that. You have been like me; you have fortified it by work."

"I fear not," he said with a smile. "I have been a flaneur, an idler. It has been my great misfortune to have enough money for what I want without working."

"Like poor me!" said Miss Van Tuyn, feeling suddenly relieved.

"I pity you both!" said Garstin.

And he branched away to literature, to music, to sculpture. Lowering his big voice suddenly he spoke of the bronzes of the Naples Museum, half shutting his eyes till they were two narrow slits, and looking intently at Arabian.

"You have the throat of one of those bronzes," he said bluntly, "and should never wear that cursed abomination, a starched linen collar."

"What is one to do in London?" murmured Arabian, suddenly stretching his brown throat and lifting his strong chin.

"Show it something worth looking at," said Garstin.

And he returned to the subject of women, and spoke on it so freely and fully that Miss Van Tuyn presently pulled him up. Rather to her surprise he showed unusual meekness under her interruption.

"All right, my girl! I've done! I've done! But I always forget you're not a young man."

"Ma foi!" said Arabian, almost under his breath.

Garstin looked across at him

"She's a Tartar. She'd keep the devil himself in order."

"He deserves restraint far less than you do," said Miss Van Tuyn.

"She won't leave me alone," continued Garstin, flinging one leg over the arm of his easy chair. "She even attacks me about my painting, says I only paint the rats of the sewers."

"I never said that," said Miss Van Tuyn. "I said you were a painter of the underworld, and so you are."

"But Mr. Dick Garstin also paints judges, mademoiselle," said Arabian.

"Oh, lord! Drop the Mister! I'm Dick Garstin tout court or I'm nothing. Now, Arabian, you know the reason, part of the reason, why I want to stick you on canvas."

"You mean because—"

He seemed to hesitate, and touched his little Guardsman's moustache.

"Because you're a jolly fine subject and nothing to do with the darlings that live in the sewers."

"Ah! Thank you!" said Arabian. "But you paint judges."

"I only put that red-faced old ruffian here as a joke. Directly I set eyes on him I knew he ought to have been in quod himself! Come now, what do you say? Look here! I'll make a bargain with you. I'll give you the thing when it's done."

Miss Van Tuyn looked at Garstin in amazement, and missed the sudden gleam of light that came into Arabian's eyes. But Garstin did not miss it and repeated:

"I'll give you the thing! Now what do you say? Is it a bargain?"

"But how can I accept?" said Arabian, quickly adding: "And how can I refuse? Mr.—"

"Drop the Mister, I say."

"Dick Garstin then."

"That's better."

"I wish to tell you that I am not a connoisseur of art. On the other hand, please, I have an eye for what is fine. Mademoiselle, I hope, will say it is so?"

He looked at Miss Van Tuyn.

"Mr. Arabian made some remarkably cute remarks about the portraits, Dick," she said in reply to the glance.

"I care for a fine painting so much that really I do not know how to refuse the temptation you offer me—Dick Garstin."

Garstin poured himself out another whisky.

"I'll start on it to-morrow," he said, staring hard at the man who had now become definitely his subject.

Soon afterwards Arabian got up and said he must go. As he said this he looked pleadingly at Miss Van Tuyn. But she sat still in her chair, a cigarette between her lips. He said "good-bye" to her formally. Garstin went down with Arabian to let him out, and was away for three or four minutes. From her chair Miss Van Tuyn heard a murmur of voices, then presently a loud bass: "To-morrow morning at eleven sharp," then the bang of a door. A minute later Garstin bounded up the stairs heavily, yet with a strong agility.

"I've got him, my girl! He's afraid of it like the devil, but I've got him. I hit on the only way. I found the only bait which my fish would take. Now for another cigar."

He seized the box.

"Did you see his eyes when I said I'd give him the picture?"

"No; I was looking at you."

"Then you missed revelation. I had diagnosed him all right."

"Tell me your diagnosis."

"I told it you long ago. That fellow is a being of the underworld."

Miss Van Tuyn slightly reddened.

"I wonder!" she said. "I'm not at all sure that you're right, Dick."

"What did you gather when I put him through his paces just now?" he asked, sending out clouds of strong-smelling smoke.

"Oh, I don't know! Not very much. He seems to have been about, to have plenty of money."

"And no education. He doesn't know a thing about pictures, painters. Just at first I thought he might have been a model. Not a bit of it! Books mean nothing to him. What that chap has studied is the pornographic book of life, my girl. He has no imagination. His feeling runs straight in the direction of sensuality. He's as ignorant and as clever as they're made. He's never done a stroke of honest work in his life, and despises all those who are fools enough to toil, me among them. He is as acquisitive as a monkey and a magpie rolled into one. His constitution is made of iron, and I dare say his nerves are made of steel. He's a rare one, I tell you, and I'll make a rare picture of him."

"I don't know whether you are right, Dick."

Garstin seemed quite unaffected by her doubt of his power to read character. Perhaps at that moment he was coolly reading hers, and laughing to himself about women. But if so, he did not show it. And she said in a moment:

"You are really going to give him the portrait?"

"Yes, when I've exhibited it. Not before, of course. The gentleman isn't going to have it all his own way."

Miss Van Tuyn looked rather thoughtful, even preoccupied. Almost immediately afterwards she got up to go.

"Coming to-morrow?" he said.

"What—to see you paint?"

"Coming?"

"You really mean that I may?"

"I do. You'll help me."

She looked rather startled, and then, immediately, keenly curious.

"I don't see how."

"No reason you should! Now off with you! I've got things to do."

"Then good-bye."

As she was going away she stopped for a moment before the portrait of the judge.

"He found out why you painted that portrait."

"Arabian?" said Garstin.

"Yes. And he said something about it that wasn't stupid."

"What was that?"

"He said it was more than a portrait of one man, that it was a portrait of the world's hypocrisy."

"Damned good!" said Garstin with a sonorous chuckle. "And his portrait will be more than the portrait of one man."

"Yes?" she said, looking eagerly at him.

But he would not say anything more, and she went away full of deep curiosity, but thankful that she had decided to stay on in London.

CHAPTER II

Two days after the visit of Arabian to Dick Garstin's studio Lady Sellingworth received a note from Francis Braybrooke, who invited her to dine with him at the Carlton on the following evening, and to visit a theatre afterwards. "Our young friends, Beryl Van Tuyn and Alick Craven" would be of the party, he hoped. Lady Sellingworth had no engagement. She seldom left home in the evening. Yet she hesitated to accept this invitation. She had not seen Miss Van Tuyn since the evening in Soho, nor Braybrooke since his visit to Berkeley Square to tell her about his trip to Paris, but she had seen Craven three times, and each time alone. Their intimacy had deepened with a rapidity which now almost startled her as she thought of it, holding Braybrooke's unanswered note. Already it seemed very strange to recall the time when she had not known Craven, when she had never seen him, had never heard of him. Sixty years she had lived without this young man in her life. She could hardly believe that. And now, with this call to meet him in public, before very watchful eyes, and in the company of two people who she was sure were in different ways hostile to her intimacy with him, she felt the cold touch of fear. And she doubted what course to take.

She wondered why Braybrooke had asked her and suspected a purpose. In a moment she believed that she had guessed what that purpose was. Braybrooke was meditating a stroke against her. She had felt that in her drawing-room with him. For some reason—perhaps only that of a social busybody—he wanted to bring about a match between Craven and Miss Van Tuyn. He had said with emphasis that Craven had almost raved about the lovely American. Lady Sellingworth did not believe that assertion. She felt sure that when he had made it Braybrooke had told her a lie. Craven had amply proved to her his indifference towards Miss Van Tuyn. Braybrooke's lie surely indicated a desire to detach his old friend's attention from the young man he had introduced into her life, and must mean that he was a little afraid of her influence. It had been practically a suggestion to her that youth triumphant must win in any battle with old age; yet it had implied a doubt, if not an actual uneasiness. And now came this invitation to meet "our young friends." Lady Sellingworth thought of the contrast between herself and Beryl Van Tuyn. She had not worried about it in the Bella Napoli when she and the young friends were together. But now—things were different now. She had, or believed she had, something to lose. And she did not want to lose it. It would be horrible to lose it!

Perhaps Braybrooke wished Craven to see her with Beryl Van Tuyn in the glare of electric light. Perhaps that was the reason of this unexpected invitation. If so, it was an almost diabolically cruel reason.

She resolved to refuse the invitation. But again a voice through the telephone caused her to change her mind. And again it was Craven's voice. It asked her whether she had received an invitation from Braybrooke, and on her replying that she had, it begged her to accept it if she had not done so already. And she yielded. If Craven wished her to go she would go. Why should she be afraid? In her ugliness surely she triumphed as no beauty could ever triumph. She told herself that and for a moment felt reassured, more than reassured, safe and happy. For the inner thing, the dweller in the temple, felt that it, and it alone, was exercising intimate power. But then a look into the glass terrified her. And she sat down and wrote two notes. One was to Francis Braybrooke accepting the invitation; the other was to a man with a Greek name and was addressed to a house in South Moulton Street.

Francis Braybrooke felt rather uneasy about his party when the day came, but he was a man of the world, and resolved to "put a good face on it." No more social catastrophes for him! Another fiasco would, he was certain, destroy his nerve and render him quite unfit to retain his place in society. He pulled himself together, using his will to the uttermost, and dressed for dinner with a still determination to carry things through with a high hand. The worst of it was that he had an uneasy feeling—quite uncalled for, he was sure of that—of being a false friend. For Lady Sellingworth was his friend. He had known her for many years, whereas Craven and Beryl Van Tuyn were comparatively new-comers in his life. And yet he was engaged in something not quite unlike a conspiracy against this old friend. Craven had said she was lonely. Perhaps that was true. Women who lived by themselves generally felt lonelier than men in a like situation. Craven, perhaps, was bringing a little solace into this lonely life. And now he, Braybrooke, was endeavouring to make an end of that solace. For he quite understood that, women being as they are, a strong friendship between Adela Sellingworth and Craven was quite incompatible with a love affair between Craven and Beryl Van Tuyn. He hoped he was not a traitor as he carefully arranged his rather large tie. But anything was better than a tragedy. And with women of Adela Sellingworth's reputed temperament one never knew quite what might happen. Her emergence, after ten years, into Shaftesbury Avenue and Soho had severely shaken Braybrooke's faith in her sobriety, fostered though it had been, created even, by her ten years of distinguished retirement. Damped-down fires sometimes blaze forth unexpectedly and rage with fury. He hoped he was doing the right thing. Anyhow, it was not his fault that Lady Sellingworth was to be of his party tonight. Miss Van Tuyn was responsible for that.

He rang the bell, which was answered by his valet.

"Please fetch the theatre ticket, Walter. It is in the drawer of my writing-table in the library. A box for the Shaftesbury Theatre."

"Yes, sir."

Walter went out and returned in a moment with the ticket. He was an old servant and occasionally exchanged ideas with his master. As he gave Braybrooke the envelope containing the ticket, he said:

"A very remarkable play, sir. I think you will enjoy it."

"What! Have you seen it?"

"Yes, sir, The Great Lover. My wife would go. She liked the name, sir. About a singer, sir, who kept on loving like a young man when the age for it was really what one might call over, sir. But it seems that for some it never is over, sir."

"Good heavens, have I done the wrong thing again?" thought Braybrooke, who had chosen the play almost at random, without knowing much about it except that an actor unknown to him, one Moscovitch, was said to be very fine in it.

"How old is the singer?" he inquired anxiously.

"I couldn't say for certain, sir. But somewhere in the forties, I should think, and nearing fifty. He loses his voice, sir, but still answers to young women at the telephone."

"Dear! Dear!"

"But as my wife says, sir, with a man it's not such a great matter. But with a woman—well!"

He pursed his narrow lips and half-shut his small grey eyes.

"Ah!" said Braybrooke, feeling extremely uncomfortable. "Good night, Walter. You needn't sit up."

"Thank you, sir. Good night, sir."

"Really the evil eye must have looked at me!" thought Braybrooke, as he went downstairs. "I'm thoroughly out of luck."

He arrived in good time at the Carlton and waited for his guests in the Palm Court. Craven was the first to arrive. He looked cheerful and eager as he came in, and, Braybrooke thought, very young and handsome. He had got away from the F. O. that afternoon, he said, and had been down at Beaconsfield playing golf. Apparently his game had been unusually good and that fact had put him into spirits.

"There's nothing like being in form with one's drive for bucking one up!" he acknowledged.

And he broke out into an almost boyish paean in praise of golf.

"But I always thought you preferred lawn tennis!" said Braybrooke.

"Oh, I don't know! Yes, I'm as keen as ever on tennis, but anyone can play golf. Mrs. Sandhurst was out to-day playing a splendid game, and she's well over sixty. That's the best of golf. People can play, and play decently, too, up to almost any age."

"Well, but my dear boy you're not in the sixties yet!"

"No. But I wasn't thinking about myself."

Braybrooke looked at him rather narrowly, and wondered of whom he had been thinking. But he said nothing more, for at this moment Miss Van Tuyn appeared in the doorway at the end of the court. Braybrooke went to meet her, but Craven stayed were he was.

"Is Adela Sellingworth coming?" she asked instantly, as Braybrooke took her hand.

"She promised to come. I'm expecting her."

He made a movement, but she stood still, though they where close to the doorway.

"And what are we going to see?"

"A play called The Great Lover. Here is Alick Craven."

At this moment Craven joined them. Seeing Miss Van Tuyn standing still with a certain obstinacy he came up and took her hand.

"Nice to meet you again," he said.

Braybrooke thought of Miss Van Tuyn's remark about the Foreign Office manner, and hoped Craven was going to be at his best that evening. It seemed to him that there was a certain dryness in the young people's greeting. Miss Van Tuyn was looking lovely, and almost alarmingly youthful and self-possessed, in a white dress. Craven, fresh from his successes at golf, looked full of the open-air spirit and the robustness of the galloping twenties. In appearance the two were splendidly matched. The faint defiance which Braybrooke thought he detected in their eyes suited them both, giving to them just a touch of the arrogance which youth and health render charming, but which in old people is repellent and ugly. They wore it like a feather set at just the right rakish angle in a cap. Nevertheless, this slight dryness must be got rid of if the evening were to be a success, and Braybrooke set himself to the task of banishing it. He talked of golf. Like many American girls, Miss Van Tuyn was at home in most sports and games. She was a good whip, a fine skater and lawn tennis player, had shot and hunted in France, liked racing, and had learnt to play golf on the links at Cannes when she was a girl of fifteen. But to-night she was not enthusiastic about golf, perhaps because Craven was. She said it was an irritating game, that playing it much always gave people a worried look, that a man who had sliced his first drive was a bore for the rest of the day, that a woman whom you beat in a match tried to do you harm as long as you and she lived. Finally she said it was certainly a fine game, but a game for old people. Craven protested, but she held resolutely to her point. In other games—except croquet, which she frankly loathed in spite of its scientific possibilities—you moved quickly, were obliged to be perpetually on the alert. In tennis and lawn tennis, in racquets, in hockey, in cricket, you never knew what was going to happen, when you might have to do something, or make a swift movement, a dash here or there, a dive, a leap, a run. But in golf half your time was spent in solemnly walking—toddling, she chose to call it—from point to point. This was, no doubt, excellent for the health, but she preferred swiftness. But then she was only a light-footed girl, not an elderly statesman.

"When I play golf much I always begin to feel like a gouty Prime Minister who has been ordered to play for the good of the country," she said. "But when I'm an old woman I shall certainly play regularly for the sake of my figure and my complexion. When I am sixty you will probably see me every day on the links."

Braybrooke saw a cloud float over Craven's face as she said this, but it vanished as he looked away towards the hall. There, through the glass of the dividing screen, Lady Sellingworth's tall and thin figure, wrapped in a long cloak of dark fur, was visible, going with her careless, trampish walk to the ladies' cloak-room.

"Ah, there is Adela Sellingworth!" said Braybrooke.

Miss Van Tuyn turned quickly, with a charming, youthful grace, made up of a suppleness and litheness which suggested almost the movement of a fluid. Craven noted it with a little thrill of unexpected pleasure, against which an instant later something in him rebelled.

"Where is she?" said Miss Van Tuyn.

"She's just gone into the ladies' cloak-room," answered Braybrooke.

"But not to powder her face!" said Miss Van Tuyn. "She keeps us waiting, like the great prima donna in a concert, just long enough to give a touch of excitement to her appearance. Dear Lady Sellingworth! She has a wonderful knowledge of just how to do things. That only comes out of a vast experience."

"Or—don't you think that kind of thing may be instinctive?" said Craven.

She sought his eyes with a sort of soft hardihood which was very alluring.

"Women are not half as instinctive as men think them," she said. "I'll tell you a little secret. They calculate more than a senior wrangler does."

"Now you are maligning yourself," he said, smiling.

"No. For I haven't quite got to the age of calculation yet."

"Oh—I see."

"Here she comes!" said Braybrooke.

And he went towards the door, leaving "our young friends" for a moment.

"But what has she done to herself?" said Miss Van Tuyn.

"Done! Lady Sellingworth?"

"Yes. Or is it only her hair?"

Craven wondered, too, as Lady Sellingworth joined them, accompanied by her host. For there was surely some slight, and yet definite, change in her appearance. She looked, he thought, younger, brighter, more vivid than she generally looked. Her white hair certainly was arranged differently from the way he was now accustomed to. It seemed thicker; there seemed to be more of it than usual. It looked more alive, too, and it marked in, he thought, an exquisite way the beautiful shape of her head. A black riband was cleverly entangled in it, and a big diamond shone upon the riband in front above her white forehead, weary with the years, but uncommonly expressive. She wore black as usual, and had another broad black riband round her throat with a fine diamond broach fastened to it. Her gown was slightly open at the front. There were magnificent diamond earrings in her ears. They made Craven think of the jewels stolen long ago at the station in Paris. This evening the whiteness of her hair seemed wonderful, as the whiteness of thickly powdered hair sometimes seems. And her eyes beneath it were amazingly vivid, startlingly alive in their glancing brightness. They looked careless and laughingly self-possessed as she came up to greet the girl and young man, matching delightfully her careless and self-possessed movement.

At that moment Craven realized, as he had certainly never realized before, what a beauty—in his mind he said what a "stunning beauty"—Lady Sellingworth must once have been. Even her face seemed to him in some way altered to-night, though he could not have told how.

Certainly she looked younger than usual. He was positive of that: still positive when he saw her standing by Miss Van Tuyn and taking her hand. Then she turned to him and gave him a friendly and careless, almost haphazard, greeting, still smiling and looking ready for anything. And then at once they went into the restaurant up the broad steps. And Craven noticed that everyone they passed by glanced at Lady Sellingworth.

At that moment he felt very proud of her friendship. He even felt a touch of romance in it, of a strange and unusual romance far removed from the sort of thing usually sung of by poets and written of by novelists.

"She is unusual!" he thought. "And so am I; and our friendship is unusual too. There has never before been anything quite like it."

And he glowed with a warming sense of difference from ordinary life.

But Miss Van Tuyn was claiming his urgent attention, and a waiter was giving him Whitstable oysters, and Chablis was being poured into his glass, and the band was beginning to play a selection from the music of Grieg, full of the poetry and the love of the North, where deep passions come out of the snows and last often longer than the loves of the South. He must give himself up to it all, and to the wonderful white-haired woman, too, with the great diamonds gleaming in her ears.

It really was quite a buoyant dinner, and Braybrooke began to feel more at ease. He had told them all where they were going afterwards, but had said nothing about Walter's description of the play. None of them had seen it, but Craven seemed to know all about it, and said it was an entertaining study of life behind the scenes at the opera, with a great singer as protagonist.

"He was drawn, I believe, from a famous baritone."

During a great part of her life Lady Sellingworth had been an ardent lover of the opera, and she had known many of the leading singers in Paris and London.

"They always seemed to me to be torn by jealousy," she said, "and often to suffer from the mania of persecution! Really, they are like a race apart."

And the conversation turned to jealousy. Braybrooke said he had never suffered from it, did not know what it was. And they smiled at him, and told him that then he could have no temperament. Craven declared that he believed almost the whole human race knew the ugly intimacies of jealousy in some form or other.

"And yourself?" said Miss Van Tuyn.

"I!" he said, and looking up saw Lady Sellingworth's brilliant eyes fixed on him.

"Do you know them?"

"I have felt jealousy certainly, but never yet as I could feel it."

"What! You are conscious of a great capacity for feeling jealous, a capacity which has never yet had its full fling?" said the girl.

"Yes," he said.

And his lips were smiling, but there was a serious look in his eyes.

And they discussed the causes of jealousy.

"We shall see it to-night on the stage in its professional form," said Craven.

"And that is the least forgivable form," said Lady Sellingworth. "Jealousy which is not bound up with the affections is a cold and hideous thing. But I cannot understand a love which is incapable of jealousy. In fact, I don't think I could believe it to be love at all."

This remark, coming from those lips, surprised Braybrooke. For Lady Sellingworth was not wont to turn any talk in which she took part upon questions concerned with the heart. He had frequently noticed her apparent aversion from all topics connected with deep feeling. To-night, it seemed, this aversion had died out of her.

In answer to the last remark Miss Van Tuyn said:

"Then, dear, you rule out perfect trust in a matter of love, do you? All the sentimentalists say that perfect love breeds perfect trust. If that is so, how can great lovers be jealous? For jealousy, I suppose—I have never felt it myself in that way—is born out of doubt, but can never exist side by side with complete confidence."

"Ah! But Beryl, in how many people in the course of a lifetime can one have complete confidence I have scarcely met one. What do you say?"

She turned her head towards Braybrooke. He looked suddenly rather plaintive, like a man who realizes unexpectedly how lonely he is.

"Oh, I hope I know a few such people," he rejoined rather anxiously. "I have been very lucky in my friends. And I like to think the best of people."

"That is kind," said Lady Sellingworth. "But I prefer to know the truth of people. And I must say I think most of us are quicksands. The worst of it is that so often when we do for a moment feel we are on firm ground we find it either too hard for our feet or too flat for our liking."

At that moment she thought of Sir Seymour Portman.

"You think it is doubt which breeds fascination?" said Craven.

"Alas for us if it is so," she answered, smiling.

"The human race is a very unsatisfactory race," said Miss Van Tuyn. "I am only twenty-four and have found that out already. It is very clever of the French to cultivate irony as they do. The ironist always wears clothes and an undershirt of mail. But the sentimentalist goes naked in the east wind which blows through society. Not only is he bound to take cold, but he is liable to be pierced by every arrow that flies."

"Yes, it is wise to cultivate irony," said Lady Sellingworth.

"You have," said Miss Van Tuyn. "One often sees it in your eyes. Isn't it true?"

She turned to Craven; but he did not choose to agree with her.

"I'm a sentimentalist," he said firmly. "And I never look about for irony. Perhaps that's why I have not found it in Lady Sellingworth."

Miss Van Tuyn sent him a glance which said plainly, but prettily, "You humbug!" But he did not mind. Once he had discussed Lady Sellingworth with Miss Van Tuyn. They had wondered about her together. They had even talked about her mystery. But that seemed to Craven a long time ago. Now he would far rather discuss Miss Van Tuyn with Lady Sellingworth than discuss Lady Sellingworth with Miss Van Tuyn. So he would not even acknowledge that he had noticed the mocking look in Lady Sellingworth's eyes. Already he had the feeling of a friend who does not care to dissect the mentality and character of his friend with another. Something in him even had an instinct to protect Lady Sellingworth from Miss Van Tuyn. That was surely absurd; unless, indeed, age always needs protection from the cruelty of youth.

Francis Braybrooke began to speak about Paris, and again Miss Van Tuyn said that she would never rest till she had persuaded Lady Sellingworth to renew her acquaintance with that intense and apparently light-hearted city, which contains so many secret terrors.

"You will come some day," she said, with a sort of almost ruthless obstinacy.

"Why not?" said Lady Sellingworth. "I have been very happy in Paris."

"And yet you have deserted it for years and years! You are an enigma. Isn't she, Mr. Braybrooke?"

Before Braybrooke had time to reply to this direct question an interruption occurred. Two ladies, coming in to dinner accompanied by two young men, paused by Braybrooke's table, and someone said in a clear, hard voice:

"What a dinky little party! And where are you all going afterwards?"

Craven and Braybrooke got up to greet two famous members of the "old guard," Lady Wrackley and Mrs. Ackroyde. Lady Sellingworth and Miss Van Tuyn turned in their chairs, and for a moment there was a little disjointed conversation, in the course of which it came out that this quartet, too, was bound for the Shaftesbury Theatre.

"You are coming out of your shell, Adela! Better late than never!" said Lady Wrackley to Lady Sellingworth, while Miss Van Tuyn quietly collected the two young men, both of whom she knew, with her violet eyes. "I hear of you all over the place."

She glanced penetratingly at Craven with her carefully made-up eyes, which were the eyes of a handsome and wary bird. Her perfectly arranged hair was glossy brown, with glints in it like the colour of a horse-chestnut. She showed her wonderful teeth in the smile which came like a sudden gleam of electric light, and went as if a hand had turned back the switch.

"I'm becoming dissipated," said Lady Sellingworth. "Three evenings out in one month! If I have one foot in the grave, I shall have the other in the Shaftesbury Theatre to-night."

One of the young men, a fair, horsey-looking boy, with a yellow moustache, a turned-up nose, and an almost abnormally impudent and larky expression, laughed in a very male and soldierly way; the other, who was dark, with a tall figure and severe grey eyes, looked impenetrably grave and absent minded.

"Well, I shall die if I don't have a good dinner at once," said Mrs. Ackroyde. "Is that a Doucet frock, Beryl?"

"No. Count Kalinsky designed it."

"Oh—Igor Kalinksy! Adela, we are in Box B. We must have a powwow between the acts."

She looked from Lady Sellingworth to Craven and back again. Short, very handsome, always in perfect health, with brows and eyes which somehow suggested a wild creature, she had an honest and quite unaffected face. Her manner was bold and direct. There was something lasting—some said everlasting—in her atmosphere.

"I cannot conceive of London without Dindie Ackroyde," said Braybrooke, as Mrs. Ackroyde led the way to the next table and sat down opposite to Craven.

And they began to talk about people. Craven said very little. Since the arrival of the other quartet he had begun to feel sensitively uncomfortable. He realized that already his new friendship for Lady Sellingworth had "got about," though how he could not imagine. He was certain that the "old guard" were already beginning to talk of Addie Sellingworth's "new man." He had seen awareness, that strange feminine interest which is more than half hostile, in the eyes of both Lady Wrackley and Mrs. Ackroyde. Was it impossible, then, in this horrible whispering gallery of London, to have any privacy of the soul? (He thought that his friendship really had something of the soul in it.) He felt stripped by the eyes of those two women at the neighbouring table, and he glanced at Lady Sellingworth almost furtively, wondering what she was feeling. But she looked exactly as usual, and was talking with animation, and he realized that her long habit of the world enabled her to wear a mask at will. Or was she less sensitive in such matters than he was?

"How preoccupied you are!" said Miss Van Tuyn's voice in his ear. "You see I was right. Golf ruins the social qualities in a man."

Then Craven resolutely set himself to be sociable. He even acted a part, still acutely conscious of the eyes of the "old guard," and almost made love to Miss Van Tuyn, as a man may make love at a dinner table. He was sure Lady Sellingworth would not misunderstand him. Whether Miss Van Tuyn misunderstood him or not did not matter to him at that moment. He saw her beauty clearly; he was able to note all the fluid fascination of her delicious youthfulness; the charm of it went to him; and yet he felt no inclination to waver in his allegiance to Lady Sellingworth. It was as if a personality enveloped him, held his senses as well as his mind in a soft and powerful grasp. Not that his senses were irritated to alertness, or played upon to exasperation. They were merely inhibited from any activity in connexion with another, however beautiful and desirable. Lady Sellingworth roused no physical desire in Craven, although she fascinated him. What she did was just this: she deprived him of physical desire. Miss Van Tuyn's arrows were shot all in vain that night. But Craven now acted well, for women's keen eyes were upon him.

Presently they got up to go to the theatre, leaving the other quartet behind them, quite willing to be late.

"Moscovitch doesn't come on for some time," said Mrs. Ackroyde. "And we are only going to see him. The play is nothing extraordinary. Where are you sitting?"

Braybrooke told her the number of their box.

"We are just opposite to you then," she said.

"Mind you behave prettily, Adela!" said Lady Wrackley.

"I have almost forgotten how to behave in a theatre," she said. "I go to the play so seldom. You shall give me some hints on conduct, Mr. Craven."

And she turned and led the way out of the restaurant, nodding to people here and there whom she knew.

Her big motor was waiting outside, and they all got into it. Braybrooke and Craven sat on the small front seats, sideways, so that they could talk to their companions; and they flashed through the busy streets, coming now and then into the gleam of lamplight and looking vivid, then gliding on into shadows and becoming vague and almost mysterious. As they crossed Piccadilly Circus Miss Van Tuyn said:

"What a contrast to our walk that night!"

"This way of travelling?" said Lady Sellingworth.

"Yes. Which do you prefer, the life of Soho and the streets and raw humanity, or the Rolls-Royce life?"

"Oh, I am far too old, and far too fixed in my habits to make any drastic change in my way of life," said Lady Sellingworth, looking out of the window.

"You didn't like your little experience the other night enough to repeat it?" said Miss Van Tuyn.

As she spoke Craven saw her eyes gazing at him in the shadow. They looked rather hard and searching, he thought.

"Oh, some day I'll go to the Bella Napoli again with you, Beryl, if you like."

"Thank you, dearest," said Miss Van Tuyn, rather drily.

And again Craven saw her eyes fixed upon him with a hard, steady look.

The car sped by the Monico, and Braybrooke, glancing with distaste at the crowd of people one could never wish to know outside it, wondered how the tall woman opposite to him with the diamonds flashing in her ears had ever condescended to push her way among them at night, to rub shoulders with those awful women, those furtive and evil-looking men. "But she must have some kink in her!" he thought, and thanked God because he had no kink, or at any rate knew of none which disturbed him. The car drew up at the theatre, and they went to their box. It was large enough for three to sit in a row in the front, and Craven insisted on Braybrooke taking the place between the two women, while he took the chair in the shadow behind Lady Sellingworth.

The curtain was already up when they came in, and a large and voluble man, almost like a human earthquake, was talking in broken English interspersed with sonorous Italian to a worried-looking man who sat before a table in a large and gaudily furnished office.

The talk was all about singers, contracts, the opera.

Craven glanced across the theatre and saw a big, empty box on the opposite side of the house. The rest of the house was full. He saw many Jews.

Lady Sellingworth leaned well forward with her eyes fixed on the stage, and seemed interested as the play developed.

"They are just like that!" she whispered presently, half turning to Craven.

Miss Van Tuyn looked round. She seemed bored. Paris, perhaps, had spoiled her for the acting in London, or the play so far did not interest her. Braybrooke glanced at her rather anxiously. He did not approve of the way in which he and his guests were seated in the box, and was sure she did not like it. Craven ought to be beside her.

"What do you think of it?" he murmured.

"The operatic types aren't bad."

She leaned with an elbow on the edge of the box and looked vaguely about the house.

"I shall insist on a change of seats after the interval!" thought Braybrooke.

A few minutes passed. Then the door of the box opposite was opened and Lady Wrackley appeared, followed by Dindie Ackroyde and the two young men who had dined with them. Lady Wrackley, looking—Craven thought—like a remarkably fine pouter pigeon, came to the front of the box and stared about the house, while the young man with the turned-up nose gently, yet rather familiarly, withdrew from her a long coat of ermine. Meanwhile Mrs. Ackroyde sat down, keeping on her cloak, which was the colour of an Indian sky at night, and immediately became absorbed in the traffic of the stage. It was obvious that she really cared for art, while Lady Wrackley cared about the effect she was creating on the audience. It seemed a long time before she sat down, and let the two young men sit down too. But suddenly there was applause and no one was looking at her. Moscovitch had walked upon the stage.

"That man can act!"

Miss Van Tuyn had spoken.

"He gets you merely by coming on. That is acting!"

And immediately she was intent on the stage.

When the curtain fell Braybrooke got up resolutely and stood at the back of the box. Craven, too stood up, and they all discussed the play.

"It's a character study, simply that," said Miss Van Tuyn. "The persistent lover who can't leave off—"

"Trying to love!" interposed Lady Sellingworth. "Following the great illusion."

And they debated whether the great singer was an idealist or merely a sensualist, or perhaps both. Miss Van Tuyn thought he was only the latter, and Braybrooke agreed with her. But Lady Sellingworth said no.

"He is in love with love, I think, and everyone who is in love with love is seeking the flame in the darkness. We wrong many people by dubbing them mere sensualists. The mystery has a driving force which many cannot resist."

"What mystery, dearest?" said Miss Van Tuyn, not without irony.

But at this moment there was a tap at the door of the box, and Craven opened it to find Mrs. Ackroyde and the young man with the severe eyes waiting outside.

"May we come in? Is there room?" said Mrs. Ackroyde.

There was plenty of room.

"Lena will be happier without us," Mrs. Ackroyde explained, without a smile, and looking calmly at Lady Sellingworth. "If I sit quite at the back here I can smoke a cigarette without being stopped. Bobbie you might give me a match."

The severe young man, who looked like a sad sensualist, one of those men who try to cloak intensity with grimness, did as he was bid, and they renewed the discussion which had been stopped for a moment, bringing the newcomers into it. Lady Sellingworth explained that the mystery she had spoken of was the inner necessity to try to find love which drives many human beings. She spoke without sentimentality, almost with a sort of scientific coldness as one stating facts not to be gainsaid. Mrs. Ackroyde said she liked the theory. It was such a comfortable one. Whenever she made a sidestep she would now be able to feel that she was driven to it by an inner necessity, planted in her family by the Immanent Will, or whatever it was that governed humanity. As she spoke she looked at the man she had called Bobbie, who was Sir Robert Syng, private secretary to a prominent minister, and when she stopped speaking he said he had never been able to believe in free will, though he always behaved as if he thought he possessed it.

Miss Van Tuyn thereupon remarked that as some people are born with tempers and intellects and some without them, perhaps it was the same with free will. She was quite positive she had a free will, but the very first time she had seen Sir Robert she had had her doubts about his having that precious possession. This sally, designed to break up the general conversation and to fasten Sir Robert's attention on herself, led to an animated discussion between her and Mrs. Ackroyde's "man." But Mrs. Ackroyde, though her large dark eyes showed complete understanding of the manoeuvre, did not seem to mind, and, turning her attention to Craven, she began to speak about acting. Meanwhile Lady Sellingwor