ance
drove around to Charmant's on the chance that she might be there. Vera
greeted her a trifle coldly, she thought, but then this was not
midnight at the Montmartre. No, Stella was not there, she said, but
nevertheless Constance decided to wait.

"I'm all unstrung," confided Constance, with an assumed air of languor,
as she dropped into a chair.

Charmant, as fresh as if she had just emerged from the proverbial
bandbox, nodded knowingly. "A Turkish bath, massage, something to tone
you up," she advised.

With alert eyes Constance went patiently through the process of
freshening, first in the steamy hot room where she had met Stella the
day before, then the deliciously cool shower, gentle massage, and all
the rest.

At one of the little white tables of the manicures she noticed a
pretty, rather sad-faced little woman. There was something about her
that attracted Constance's attention, although she could not have told
exactly what it was.

"You know her?" whispered Floretta, bursting with excitement. "No?
Why,--" and here she paused and dropped her voice even lower,--"that's
Mrs. Warrington."

"Not the--"

"Yes," she nodded, "his wife. You know, she comes here twice a week. We
have to do some tall scheming to keep them apart. No, it's not vanity,
either. It's--well--you see, she's trying to get him back, to look like
a sport."

Constance thought of the hopeless fight so far which the little woman
was waging to keep up with the dashing actress. Then she thought of
Warrington, of last night, of how he had sought her, so ready, it
seemed, to leave even the "other woman." Then Floretta's remark
repeated itself mechanically. "We have to do some tall scheming to keep
them apart." Was Stella here, after all?

Mrs. Warrington was not a bad looking woman and in fact it was
difficult to see how she expected to be improved by cosmetics that
would lighten her complexion, bleaches that would flaxen her hair,
tortures for this, that, and the other defect, real or imagined.

Now, however, she was a creature of reinforcements, from her puffy
masses of light hair to her French heels and embroidered stockings that
showed through the slash in the drapery of her gown.

Constance felt sorry for her, deeply sorry. The whole thing seemed not
in keeping with her. She was a home-maker, not a butterfly. Was
Warrington worth it all? asked Constance of herself. "At least she
thinks so," flashed over her, as Mrs. Warrington rose, and