e book and looked up at him with twinkling eyes.

"Well, I didn't mean to tell a soul until it was finished," she
declared, "but you've just caught me. I've had such a brilliant idea.
I'm going to write a Society Encyclopaedia!"

Deyes looked at her solemnly.

"A Society Encyclopaedia!" he repeated uncertainly. "'Pon my word, I'm
not quite sure that I understand."

She motioned him to sit down by her side.

"I'll explain," she said. "You know we're all expected to know something
about everything nowadays, and it's such a bore reading up things. I'm
going to compile a little volume of definitions. I shall sell it at a
guinea a copy, pay all my debts, and become quite respectable again."

Deyes shook his head. His attitude was scarcely sympathetic.

"My dear Lady Peggy, what nonsense!" he declared. "Respectable, indeed!
I call it positively pandering to the middle classes!"

Lady Peggy looked doubtful.

"It is a horrid word, isn't it?" she admitted, "but it would be lovely
to make some money. Of course, I haven't absolutely decided how to spend
it yet. It does seem rather a waste, doesn't it, to pay one's debts, but
think of the luxury of feeling one could do it if one wanted to!"

"There's something in that," Deyes admitted. "But an encyclopaedia! My
dear Lady Peggy, you don't know what you're talking about. I've got one
somewhere, I know. It came in a van, and it took two of the men to
unload it."

Lady Peggy laughed softly.

"Oh! I don't mean that sort, of course," she declared. "I mean just a
little gilt-edged text book, bound in morocco, you know, with just those
things in it we're likely to run up against. Radium, for instance. Now
every one's talking about radium. Do you know what radium is?"

Deyes swung his eyeglass carefully by its black riband.

"Well," he admitted, "I've a sort of idea, but I'm not very good at
definitions."

"Of course not," Lady Peggy declared triumphantly. "When it comes to the
point, you see what a good idea mine is. You turn to my textbook," she
added, turning the pages over rapidly, "and there you are. Radium! 'A
hard, rare substance, invented by Mr. Gillette to give tone to his
bachelor parties.' What do you think of that?"

"Wonderful!" Deyes declared solemnly. "Where do you get your information
from?"

"Oh! I poke about in dictionaries and things, and ask every one
questions," Lady Peggy declared airily. "Would you like to hear some
more?"

"Our hostess is becko