u are half disposed to tell me, a little
more than half, I think. Go on."

He looked at her as one might look at the magician who has achieved the
apparently impossible.

"You are wonderful," he said. "Yes, I will tell you my dilemma, if you
like. I have just come from Sloane Gardens!"

Her face changed instantly. It was as though a mask had been dropped over
it. Her eyes were fixed, her features expressionless.

"Well?" she said, simply.

He drew a letter from his pocket.

"You may as well see it yourself," he remarked. "For reasons which you
may doubtless understand, I have always kept on good terms with Mrs.
Phillimore, and she was to have dined with me and some other friends
to-morrow night. Here is a note which I had from her yesterday. Will you
read it?"

Berenice held it between her finger tips. There were only a few lines,
and she read them at a glance.

Sloane Gardens,
_Tuesday_.

My dear Sir Leslie,

I am so sorry, but I must scratch for to-morrow night. L. is going
North on some mysterious expedition, and I am afraid that he will want
me to go with him. In fact, he has already said so. Ask me again some
time, won't you?

Yours ever,
Blanche Phillimore.

Berenice folded up the letter and returned it.

"It is a little extraordinary," she remarked. "I am much obliged to you
for showing me this. If you do not mind, we will talk of something else.
Look, there is Clara Mannering alone under the trees. Go and talk to
her."

Berenice touched the checkstring, and Borrowdean was forced to depart.
She smiled upon him graciously enough, but she spoke not another word
about Mannering. Borrowdean was obliged to leave her without knowing
whether he had lost or gained the trick.

Clara Mannering received him not altogether graciously. As a matter of
fact, she was looking for some one else. They strolled along, talking
almost in monosyllables. Borrowdean found time to notice the change which
even these few months in London had wrought in her. She was still
graceful in her movements, but a smart dressmaker had contrived to make
her a perfect reproduction of the recognized type of the moment. She had
lost her delicate colouring. There was a certain hardness in her young
face, a certain pallor and listlessness in her movements which Borrowdean
did not fail to note. He tried to lead the conversation into more
personal channels.

"We seem to have met very little during the last month," he