alone who was real for her, not
the other figures; and she did not see the grayness that settled like a
shadow on Lord Dauntrey's lined and sallow face.

"I'm awfully sorry, Miss Grant," he said, "but I can't give you back
your money now, for the simple reason that I banked most of your capital
and mine this afternoon. I felt rather seedy, and didn't mean to play
seriously to-night. If only you'd spoken in time, it would have been all
right enough. But now I'm afraid the best I can do for you, until
to-morrow, will be a few hundred francs. My wife and I must see what we
can scrape together."

He jumbled his words, as if in a hurry to get them all out, and laughed
apologetically, staring Mary straight in the face, insistently, with his
melancholy eyes. Something in them caught her attention, distracting it
from the thought that was always forcing itself in front of others. She
readily believed that he "felt seedy," for he looked extremely ill.
There were bags under the gray eyes, and his skin seemed loose on his
face, almost like a glove on a hand for which it is too large. Mary was
sorry for him, and protested that after all she did not care about
playing that night. She would wait till to-morrow, and he must not mind
what she had said. He appeared to be slightly relieved; but though he
smiled, his eyes kept the dull glassiness which gave them an unnatural
effect.

Late that night Eve knocked at Mary's door. She had on a bright green
dressing-gown, with a Chinese embroidery running over it of golden
dragons and serpents. In her hand she carried a cheap silver-backed
brush, and her long dark hair was undone. She looked strikingly
handsome, but the thick black strands hanging down on either side of the
white face recalled to Mary a picture in the library at Lady
MacMillan's. It was a clever painting of the Medusa, level-eyed, with a
red mouth like a wound, and dimly seen, pale glimmering features,
between the lazy writhing of dark snakes. The thing had fascinated Mary
in her impressionable schoolgirl days, but now she tried to huddle the
idea quickly out of her head, for it seemed disloyal and even disgusting
in connection with her hostess.

"I saw your light under the door," Lady Dauntrey said, "and I thought
maybe you wouldn't mind my sitting with you for a bit. I do feel so
beastly down on my luck, and you always cheer me up, you're so different
from any of the others."

Mary had begun, for perhaps the twentieth