nd said with
feeling: "I want you to help me to help him, Gaynor."

For one instant the neutral look which was the livery of his face, as it
were, fell from it, and Sophy saw a deeply moved fellow being gazing at
her.

"I will consider it an honour as well as a duty to be of service to you,
madam," he replied.

"Very well, Gaynor. Then we must keep nothing that concerns Mr. Chesney
from each other. I will be quite frank with you--you must be equally
frank with me. You must keep nothing back."

"It shall be as you wish, madam, in every respect."

"That is all for the moment. Later I shall get you to give me a clear
account of ... of everything. So that I shall ... know how to ... to act
in emergencies if you should not be there."

"Very good, madam."

"Is Mr. Chesney still--asleep?"

"He will sleep probably until to-morrow afternoon, madam."

"Let me know when he recovers--I shall trust to you to tell me when it
is best for me to see him."

"I will, madam."

"Then--good-night, Gaynor."

"Good-night, madam. I hope that you will rest well."

Lady Wychcote arrived next morning and drove straight from the train to
the house in Regent's Park. She was still a beautiful woman; but as
Cecil had told Sophy during their engagement, with that peculiar British
frankness in speaking of the closest relations, she was "as hard as
nails," and her beauty was also adamantine. Though sixty, she did not
look more than forty-five, but her "make-up" was judicious and
wonderfully well done. There were people who said that Cecily Wychcote
had gone to Paris for six months or so, and there, in a mysterious
seclusion, had had the skin peeled from her face by some adept in the
art of flaying, and that this explained the absence of wrinkles "at her
age." True, wrinkles in the ordinary sense of the word she had not; her
well-chiselled face was as smooth and empty of expression in repose as a
Wedgewood plaque, and its patine was as rare a work of art; but her icy
eyes, still as blue as cobalt, could express many things very admirably,
as could her delicate thin lips and nostrils. Lady Wychcote's wig was as
conservative as the politics of her house. It was a fair brown, and here
and there the artist had woven in grey hairs. She dressed well. She was
the modern type of young-old woman in its highest perfection. Only her
language, like her mind, had a taint of early Victorian; but of this she
was totally unaware.

XVI

Lady W