ned a breach between herself and the little
intimate group that had been hers before the war. She wondered sometimes
what they would think of Louis Akers. They would admire him, at first,
for his opulent good looks, but very soon they would recognize what she
knew so well--the gulf between him and the men of their own world, so
hard a distinction to divine, yet so real for all that. They would know
instinctively that under his veneer of good manners was something coarse
and crude, as she did, and they would politely snub him. She had no name
and no knowledge for the urge in the man that she vaguely recognized and
resented. But she had a full knowledge of the obsession he was becoming
in her mind.

"If I could see him here," she reflected, more than once, "I'd get over
thinking about him. It's because they forbid me to see him. It's sheer
contrariness."

But it was not, and she knew it. She had never heard of his theory about
the mark on a woman.

She was hating herself very vigorously on that Sunday afternoon.
Mademoiselle and she had lunched alone in Lily's sitting-room, and
Mademoiselle had dozed off in her chair afterwards, a novel on her knee.
Lily was wandering about downstairs when the telephone rang, and she had
a quick conviction that it was Louis Akers. It was only Willy Cameron,
however, asking her if she cared to go for a walk.

"I've promised Jinx one all day," he explained, "and we might as well
combine, if you are not busy."

She smiled at that.

"I'd love it," she said. "In the park?"

"Wait a moment." Then: "Yes, Jinx says the park is right."

His wholesome nonsense was good for her. She drew a long breath.

"You are precisely the person I need to-day," she said. "And come soon,
because I shall have to be back at five."

When he came he was very neat indeed, and most scrupulous as to his
heels being polished. He was also slightly breathless.

"Had to sew a button on my coat," he explained. "Then I found I'd sewed
in one of my fingers and had to start all over again."

Lily was conscious of a change in him. He looked older, she thought, and
thinner. His smile, when it came, was as boyish as ever, but he did
not smile so much, and seen in full daylight he was shabby. He seemed
totally unconscious of his clothes, however.

"What do you do with yourself, Willy?" she asked. "I mean when you are
free?"

"Read and study. I want to take up metallurgy pretty soon. There's a
night course at the c