with the fiction of France and Italy as
she was with that of England.

This she explained was due to the fact that until she was about twelve,
that is to say some seven years ago, she had been constantly living and
wandering about in these two countries with her mother and sometimes
also with a gentleman who, as she put it, was pretty probably her
father. She explained further that at the mature age of thirteen she had
run away from a French school in which she had been placed by some
unknown agency and joined a wandering English circus-troop with which
she had travelled half over Europe, leading a more or less miserable
existence for some five years. She had then terminated her connection
with the Ring by going into housekeeping with an English art-student in
Paris. Meanwhile she had lost all trace of her mother, and had come to
the conclusion that she had by this time drunk herself to death.

"I scarcely ever knew her to be quite sober," she said pathetically,
and then she changed the subject.

It was not a very cheerful story, as story, but Miss Carol told it with
such a quaint humour and such a vivacity of expression and gesture that,
despite the under-note of tragedy, Maxwell thought it the most
interesting story he had ever heard in his life.

As the courses disappeared and the empty bottle of wine was succeeded by
a half bottle "just for the last," as Maxwell said, the conversation
grew gayer and perhaps also a trifle freer, although Miss Carol never
permitted herself any of those freedoms of expression with which too
many of the so-called Daughters of Delight vulgarise themselves so
hopelessly. When the half bottle was finished Maxwell wanted another,
and to this Miss Carol promptly and firmly objected.

"If you will excuse me saying so to a new acquaintance," she said, "I
wouldn't if I were you. We have both of us had enough of this stuff,
nice and all as it is--at least, I have, and I think I'm more used to it
than you. A coffee and liqueur if you like. That won't hurt us--in fact,
it'll do us good; but I can see something in your eyes that shouldn't be
there."

"What do you mean?" said Maxwell, a trifle offended. "Surely you're not
going to accuse me of the unpardonable crime of getting drunk in the
company of a lady."

"Thank you!" she said simply, and yet with a decided dignity. "No, I
don't mean that. It's a funny thing, you know," she went on, leaning her
elbows on the table and staring straight