foliage.

Lady Durwent's dinner-party had been an expedition into the artistic
fakery of London, and he would have dismissed the whole affair as a
stimulating and amusing diversion from the ultra-aristocratic rut if
the personality of Elise Durwent had not remained with him like a
haunting melody.

He looked at his watch. 'By Jove!' he muttered; 'it's nine o'clock;'
and hurriedly completing his ablutions, he dressed and descended to
breakfast.

III.

Into the row of splendidly inert houses known as Chelmsford Gardens,
Austin Selwyn turned his course. A couple of saddle-horses were
standing outside No. 8, held by a groom of expressionless countenance.
From No. 3 a butler emerged, looked at the morning, and retired.
Elsewhere inaction reigned.

Ringing the bell, Selwyn was admitted into the music-room of the
previous night's scene. The portrait of a famous Elizabethan beauty
looked at him with plump and saucy arrogance. In place of the
crackling fire a new one was laid, all orderly and proper, like a set
of new resolutions. The genial disorder of the chairs, moved at the
whim of the Olympians, had all been put straight, and the whole room
possessed an air of studied correctness, as though it were anxious to
forget the previous evening's laxity with the least possible delay.

'Good-morning.'

Elise Durwent swept into the room with an impression of boundless
vitality. She was dressed in a black riding-habit with a divided
skirt, from beneath which a pair of glistening riding-boots shone with
a Cossack touch. Her copper hair, which was arranged to lie rather low
at the back, was guarded by a sailor-hat that enhanced to the full the
finely formed features and arched eyebrows. There was an extraordinary
sense of youthfulness about her--not the youthfulness of immaturity,
but the stimulating quality of the spirit.

'I came here this morning,' began Selwyn vaguely, 'expecting'----

'Expecting a frumpy, red-haired girl with a black derby hat down to her
nose.'

He bowed solemnly. 'Instead of which, I find--a Russian princess.'

'You are a dear. You can't imagine how much thought I expended on this
hat.'

'It was worth it. You look absolutely'----

'Just a minute, Mr. Selwyn. You are not going to tell me I look
charming?'

'That was my intention.'

She sighed, with a pretty pretence at disappointment. 'That will cost
me half-a-crown,' she said.

'I beg your'----

'Yes; I wagered myself two-a