lly very
wonderful, although he's clever and ambitious enough; but he has a way
that makes women fond of him; and men admire him, too. He looks straight
into your eyes when he talks to you, as if he cared more for you than
anyone else in the world: and if I were an artist, painting a picture of
a dark young knight starting off for the crusades, I should ask Ivor
Dundas to stand as my model.

Perhaps his expression wouldn't be exactly right for the pious young
crusader, for it isn't at all saintly, really: still, I have seen just
that rapt sort of look on his face. It was generally when he was talking
to Di: but I wouldn't let myself believe that it meant anything in
particular. He has the reputation of having made lots of women fall in
love with him. This was one of the first things I heard when Di and I
came over from America to visit Lord and Lady Mountstuart. And of course
there was the story about him and Maxine de Renzie. Everyone was talking
of it when we first arrived in London.

My heart beat very fast as I guided him into the room which Lady
Mountstuart has given Di and me for our special den. It is separated by
another larger room from the ballroom; but both doors were open and we
could see people dancing.

I told him he might sit by me on the sofa under Di's book shelves,
because we could talk better there. Usually, I don't like being in front
of a mirror, because--well, because I'm only the "pretty girl's sister."
But to-night I didn't mind. My cheeks were red, and my eyes bright.
Sitting down, you might almost take me for a tall girl, and the way my
gown was made didn't show that one shoulder is a little higher than the
other. Di designed the dress.

I thought, if I wasn't pretty, I did look interesting, and original. I
looked as if I could _think_ of things; and as if I could feel.

And I was feeling. I was wondering why he had been so good to me lately,
unless he cared. Of course it might be for Di's sake; but I am not so
queer-looking that no man could ever be fascinated by me.

They say pity is akin to love. Perhaps he had begun by pitying me,
because Di has everything and I nothing; and then, afterwards, he had
found out that I was intelligent and sympathetic.

He sat by me and didn't speak at first. Just then Di passed the
far-away, open door of the ballroom, dancing with Lord Robert West, the
Duke of Glasgow's brother.

"Thank you so much for the book," I said.

(He had sent me a book that