e places where they had stayed. In their three months'
wanderings they had never been invited to any private house. Miss
Keating could not account for that air of ill-defined celebrity that
hung round Kitty like a scent, and marked her trail.

Not that any social slur seemed to attach to Kitty. The acquaintances
she had made in her brief and curious fashion were all, or nearly all,
socially immaculate. The friends (they were all men) who came to her of
their own intimate accord, belonged, some of them, to an aristocracy
higher than that represented by Mr. Lucy or the Colonel. And they had
been by no means impervious to Kitty's charm.

From the sounds that came from the billiard-room she gathered that
Kitty's charm appealed also to her audience in there. Leaning her body
forward so as to listen, Miss Keating became aware that Lucy had
returned to the lounge, and was strolling about in it, as if he were
looking for somebody. He strolled into the veranda.

The garden was dark now, but a little light fell on the veranda from the
open windows of the lounge. Lucy looked at Mrs. Tailleur's empty chair.
He was about to sit in it when he saw that he was alone with Mrs.
Tailleur's companion. He rose again for flight. Miss Keating rose also
with the same intention.

Lucy protested. "Please don't let me disturb you. I am not going to sit
here."

"But I am driving you in."

"Not at all. I only thought you might object to my smoking."

"But I don't object."

"You don't, really?"

"If I stay," said she, "will that prove it?"

"Please do," said Lucy.

Miss Keating pushed her chair as far as possible from his. She seated
herself with a fugitive, sidelong movement; as much as to say she left
him to the sanctuary he sought. He would please to observe the
perfection of her withdrawal. The table with the match-stand on it stood
between them.

Lucy approached the match-stand tentatively. Miss Keating, averted and
effaced, was yet aware of him.

"I'm afraid there are no matches," said she. "Mrs. Tailleur has used
them all." So effaced and so averted was Miss Keating that there was
nothing left of her but a sweet, attenuated, disembodied voice. It was
as if spirit spoke to spirit with the consecrated doors between.

Lucy smiled. He paused at Mrs. Tailleur's chair.

"Is your friend coming back again?" he asked.

"I don't think so."

It might have been an effect of her remoteness, but Miss Keating's tone
conveyed to him ev