a pleasant place--her
determination to make it pleasant and to be gay under every
circumstance.

She was as little, flawless and gleaming as her house. More than half
her good looks were due to the immaculate care which she bestowed on her
body--the whiteness of her teeth, the fineness of her well-kept hands,
the brilliant clearness of her complexion, the wavy smoothness of her
abundant flaxen hair which had been brushed and brushed until it shone
and glinted like raw gold in sunshine. She would have looked almost too
perfect to be genuine, had it not been for her vivid health. She was so
dainty in her fragility that one longed and yet scarcely dared to touch
her.

The moment she had spoken Tabs had recognized that nothing that she had
done or might do could obscure her atmosphere of breeding. He had met
men like that, whose sense of race, even when they were at the lowest
depths, had kept them superior to their environment. A pale woman of
spun silk and gossamer, with cornflower eyes and lips like parted
poppy-petals! This woman could be kind to the point of folly--so kind
that her folly would appear almost virtue. She was a woman who, though
she might love too often, would love so much that to her much would
always be forgiven.

"I must apologize," Tabs spoke gently, "for having been found staring at
your picture."

He did not know it, but men always spoke gently to Maisie. It was her
air of trust and helplessness that did it, her tender trick of creating
in each man the belief that she relied peculiarly on him for
protection--all of which was totally at variance with the masterly
efficiency with which she ran both herself and her house.

"I was staring at your picture," Tabs continued, "because I thought I
recognized----"

"I daresay you did," Maisie interrupted. "Though you may not have met
her, her face is forever in the papers. Among the family she's known as
the Princess Czarina Bolsheviki----"

"She looks it. But is she a princess?"

Maisie laughed. "Not yet, but it won't be her fault if she isn't. It'll
have to be a prince next time. If she marries again, she'll stoop to
nothing less. Look at the way she carries her head; she almost feels the
weight of her coronet already. But she says she's had enough of
marriage. We've all said that. Poor dear Di, she misses a lot of fun by
her exclusiveness. If I only had half her wealth----"

She evidently wanted Tabs to ask her what she would do with it. Her ey