y Americans are so much smarter than we poor English? I
can't bear them as a nation though, can you?"

"Yes," said Lord Bracondale. "I think the best friends I have in the
world are American. The women particularly are perfectly charming. You
feel all the time you are playing a game with really experienced
adversaries, and it makes it interesting. They are full of resource,
and you know underneath you could never break their hearts. I am not
sure if they have any in their own country, but if so they turn into the
most wonderful and exquisite bits of mechanism when they come to
Europe."

"And you admire that."

"Certainly--hearts are a great bore."

"You were always a cynic, Hector; that is perhaps what makes you so
attractive."

"Am I attractive?"

"I can't judge," said Mrs. Ellerwood, nettled for a moment. "I have
known you too long, but I hear other women saying so."

"That is comforting, at all events," said Lord Bracondale. "I always
have adored women."

"No, you never have, that is just it. You have let them adore you, and
utterly spoil you; so now sometimes, Hector, you are insupportable."

"You just said I was attractive."

"I shall not argue further with you," said Mrs. Ellerwood, pettishly.

"And I think we ought to be saying good-night, Hector," interrupted the
silent Jack. "We are making an early start for Fontainebleau to-morrow,
and Monica likes any amount of sleep."

This did not suit Mrs. Ellerwood at all; but if Jack spoke seldom he
spoke to some purpose when he did, and she knew there was no use
arguing.

So with a heart full of ungratified curiosity, she at last allowed
herself to be packed into Hector's automobile and driven away.

"Of course he'll go and join that other party now, Jack! What _did_ you
make me come away for, you tiresome thing!" she said to her husband.

"He has done me many a turn in the past," said Jack, laconically.

"Then you think--?"

But Jack refused to think.

V

Theodora was sitting rather on the outskirts of the party in the
_bosquet_, her two devoted admirers still on either side of her. All the
chairs were arranged informally, and hers was against the opening, so
that it proved easy for Lord Bracondale to come up behind her
unperceived.

She believed he had gone. She could not see distinctly from where she
was, but she had thought she saw the automobile whizzing by. She
recognized Mrs. Ellerwood's hat. An unconscious feeling of blankness