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 suppos