, and around it; anything to keep
moving. She hurried back to the house just in time to reach the hall as
the omnibus backed up. And the first person she saw descend, after Hugh,
was Mrs. Kame.

"Here we are, Honora," she cried. "I hope you're glad to see us, and that
you'll forgive our coming so informally. You must blame Hugh. We've
brought Adele."

The second lady was, indeed, none other than Mrs. Eustace Rindge,
formerly Mrs. Dicky Farnham. And she is worth--even at this belated stage
in our chronicle an attempted sketch, or at least an attempted
impression. She was fair, and slim as a schoolgirl; not very tall, not
exactly petite; at first sight she might have been taken for a
particularly immature debutante, and her dress was youthful and rather
mannish. Her years, at this period of her career, were in truth but two
and twenty, yet she had contrived, in the comparatively brief time since
she had reached the supposed age of discretion, to marry two men and
build two houses, and incidentally to see a considerable portion of what
is known as the world. The suspicion that she was not as innocent as a
dove came to one, on closer inspection, as a shock: her eyes were tired,
though not from loss of sleep; and her manner--how shall it be described
to those whose happy lot in life has never been to have made the
acquaintance of Mrs. Rindge's humbler sisters who have acquired--more
coarsely, it is true--the same camaraderie? She was one of those for
whom, seemingly, sex does not exist. Her air of good-fellowship with men
was eloquent of a precise knowledge of what she might expect from them,
and she was prepared to do her own policing,--not from any deep moral
convictions. She belonged, logically, to that world which is disposed to
take the law into its own hands, and she was the possessor of five
millions of dollars.

"I came along," she said to Honora, as she gave her hand-bag to a
footman. "I hope you don't mind. Abby and I were shopping and we ran into
Hugh and Georgie yesterday at Sherry's, and we've been together ever
since. Not quite that--but almost. Hugh begged us to come up, and there
didn't seem to be any reason why we shouldn't, so we telephoned down to
Banbury for our trunks and maids, and we've played bridge all the way. By
the way, Georgie, where's my pocket-book?"

Mr. Pembroke handed it over, and was introduced by Hugh. He looked at
Honora, and his glance somehow betokened that he was in the habit of
l