ic seconds there was undoubted tension
between them. Isabel was aware of it, and gripped the supporting arm very
closely.

Then with a shrug Eustace turned from the contest. "Oh, go your own way!
It's all one to me. You're one of the slow coaches that never get
anywhere."

Scott said nothing whatever. He smoked his cigarette without a sign of
perturbation. Save for a certain steeliness in his pale eyes, his
habitually placid expression remained unaltered.

He walked in silence for a few moments, then without effort began to talk
in a general strain of their journey of the previous day. Had Isabel
cared about the sleigh-ride? If so, they would go again one day.

She lighted up in response with an animation which she had not displayed
during the whole walk. Her eyes shone a little, as with a far-off fire of
gratitude.

"I should like it if you would, Stumpy," she said.

"Then we will certainly go," he said. "I should enjoy it very much."

Eustace came out of a somewhat sullen silence to throw a glance of
half-reluctant approval towards his brother. He plainly regarded Scott's
move as an achievement of some importance.

"Yes, go by all means!" he said. "Enjoy yourselves. That's all I ask."

Isabel's faint smile flitted across her tired face, but she said nothing.

Only as they reached and entered the hotel, she pressed Scott's hand for
a moment in both her own.

CHAPTER IV

THE MAGICIAN

"Well, Dinah, my dear, are you ready?"

Rose de Vigne, very slim and graceful, with her beautiful hair mounted
high above her white forehead and falling in a shower of golden ringlets
behind after the style of a hundred years ago, stood on the threshold of
Dinah's room, awaiting permission to enter. Her dress was of palest green
satin brocade, a genuine Court dress of a century old. Her arms and neck
gleamed with a snowy whiteness. She looked as if she had just stepped out
of an ancient picture.

There came an impatient cry from within the room. "Oh, come in! Come in!
I'm not nearly ready,--never shall be, I think. Where is Yvonne? Couldn't
she spare me a single moment?"

The beautiful lady entered with a smile. She could afford to smile, being
complete to the last detail and quite sure of taking the ballroom by
storm. She found Dinah scurrying barefooted about the room with her hair
in a loose bunch on her neck, her attire of the scantiest description,
her expression one of wild desperation.

"I've lost my st