ly refused to believe there was
anything wrong. For one thing, she was the daughter of a commoner--and
the morality of the middle classes is a conviction solidly rooted in
English society. And then there were his writings. How could one
doubt the character of a man so dull?

Undiscouraged, they still maintained their perfectly innocent
friendship, and, like kittens playing with a spool, invested it with
all the appearances of an intrigue.

Dismissing his depressing thoughts, H. Stackton Dunckley noticed that
his cigarette was out, and closing his eyes, fell asleep once more.

III.

Madame Carlotti, clothed in a kimono of emphatic shade, sat by the fire
in her rooms in Knightsbridge and read her mail while sipping coffee.
She was the wife of an Italian diplomat, a sort of wandering
plenipotentiary who did business in every part of the world but London,
and with every Government but that of Britain. It was the signora's
somewhat incomprehensible complaint that her husband's duties forced
her to live in that fog-bound metropolis, and having thus achieved the
pedestal of a martyr, she poured abuse on everything English from
climate to customs. Possessed of a certain social dexterity and the
ability to make the most ordinary conversation seem to concern a
forbidden topic, Madame Carlotti was in great demand as a guest, and
abused more English habits and attended more dinner-parties than any
other woman in London.

From beneath seven tradesmen's letters she extracted one from Lady
Durwent.

'8 CHELMSFORD GARDENS,

'DEAREST LUCIA,--I am counting on you for next Friday. A young
American author studying England--I suppose like that Count
Something-or-other in _Pickwick Papers_--is coming to dinner. I
understand he drinks very little, so I am relying on you to thaw him.

'Stackton Dunckley _insists_ upon coming, though I tell him that it is
dangerous; and of course people are saying dreadful things, I know. He
is _so_ persistent. There will be just half-a-dozen _unusual_ people
there, my dear, so don't fail me. Dinner will be at 8.30.--So
sincerely, SYBIL DERWENT.

'P.S.--Don't you think you could make Stackton interested in you? Your
husband is away so much.'

Madame Carlotti smiled with her teeth and drank some very strong coffee.

'It ees deefficult,' she said, with that seductive formation of the
lips used by her countrywomen when speaking English, 'for a magnet to
attract putty. Still--the