into your eyes exactly,
it makes them come into your heart."

We continued the subject, divagating as we went, and had a nice little
sentimental conversation. There are depths of human feeling I should
never have suspected in this lazy panther of a woman, and although she
openly avows having no more education than a tinker's dog, she can talk
with considerable force and vividness of expression.

Indeed, when one comes to think of it, a tinker's dog has a fine
education if he be naturally a shrewd animal and takes advantage of his
opportunities; and a fine education, too, of its kind was that of
the vagabond Lola, who on her way from Dublin to Yokohama had more
profitably employed her time than Lady Kynnersley supposed. She had
seen much of the civilised places of the earth in her wanderings from
engagement to engagement, and had been an acute observer of men and
things.

We exchanged travel pictures and reminiscences. I found myself floating
with her through moonlit Venice, while she chanted with startling
exactness the cry of the gondoliers. To my confusion be it spoken, I
forgot all about Dale Kynnersley and my mission. The lazy voice and
rich personality fascinated me. When I rose to go I found I had spent a
couple of hours in her company. She took me round the room and showed me
some of her treasures.

"This is very old. I think it is fifteenth century," she said, picking
up an Italian ivory.

It was. I expressed my admiration. Then maliciously I pointed to a
horrible little Tyrolean chalet and said:

"That, too, is very pretty."

"It isn't. And you know it."

She is a most disconcerting creature. I accepted the rebuke meekly. What
else could I do?

"Why, then, do you have it here?"

"It's a present from Anastasius," she said. "Every time he comes to
see me he brings what he calls an _'offrande'_. All these things"--she
indicated, with a comprehensive sweep of the arm, the Union Jack
cushion, the little men mounting ladders inside bottles, the hen sitting
on her nest, and the other trumpery gimcracks--"all these things are
presents from Anastasius. It would hurt him not to see them here when he
calls."

"You might have a separate cabinet," I suggested.

"A chamber of horrors?" she laughed. "No. It gives him more pleasure to
see them as they are--and a poor little freak doesn't get much out of
life."

She sighed, and picking up "A Present from Margate" kind of mug,
fingered it very tenderly.

I w