ay before the one you want him to
dine with you," he told her.

But Lady Arabella swept his objections aside with regal indifference.

"Crossing, is he?" she snapped. "Well, tell him I want him to dine here
and go to the show with us afterwards. He'll cross the day _after_,
you'll find--if he crosses at all!" she wound up enigmatically.

So it came about that her two lions, the last-arrived artist and the
soon-to-arrive musician, were both dining with her on the appointed
evening.

Lady Arabella adored lions. Also, notwithstanding her seventy years, she
retained as much original Eve in her composition as a girl of seventeen,
and she adored young men.

In particular, she decided that she approved of Michael Quarrington. She
liked the clean English build of him. She liked his lean, square jaw and
the fair hair with the unruly kink in it which reminded her of a certain
other young man--who had been young when she was young--and to whom
she had bade farewell at her parents' inflexible decree more than fifty
years ago. Above all, she liked the artist's eyes--those grey, steady
eyes with their look of reticence so characteristic of the man himself.

Reticence was an asset in her ladyship's estimation. It showed good
sense--and it offered provocative opportunities for a battle of wits
such as her soul loved.

"Have you seen my god-daughter dance, Mr. Quarrington?" she asked him.

"Yes, several times."

His tone was non-committal and she eyed him sharply.

"Don't admire dancing, do you?" she threw at him.

Quarrington regarded her with a humorous twinkle.

"And I an artist? How can you ask, Lady Arabella?"

"Well, you sounded supremely detached," she grumbled.

"I think Mademoiselle Wielitzska's dancing the loveliest thing I have
ever seen," he returned simply.

The old woman vouchsafed him a smile.

"Thank you," she answered. "I enjoyed that quite as much as I used to
enjoy being told I'd a pretty dimple when I was a girl."

"You have now," rejoined Quarrington audaciously.

Lady Arabella's eyes sparkled. She loved a neatly turned compliment.

"Thank you again. But it's a pity to waste your pretty speeches on an
old woman of seventy."

"I don't," retorted the artist gravely. "I reserve them for the young
people I know of that age."

She laughed delightedly. Then, turning to Davilof, she drew him into the
conversation and the talk became general.

Later, as they were all three standing in the hall pre