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 Octob