ernoon. She had guessed, from the beautiful woman's constrained
manner when they met at a shop the day after the dinner-dance, that she
was hurt because she had not been invited: though why she should expect
to be asked to every entertainment which the Nelson Smiths gave, Annesley
could not see.

Vaguely distressed, however, by the flash in the handsome eyes, and the
curt "How do you do?" the girl appealed to Knight.

"Ought we to have had the Countess de Santiago last evening?" she asked,
perching on his knee in the room at the back of the house which he had
annexed as a "den."

"Certainly not," he reassured her, promptly. "All the people were howling
swells. The Annesley-Setons had skimmed the topmost layer of the cream
for our benefit, and the Countess would have been 'out' of it in such a
set, unless she'd been telling fortunes. You can ask her when you've a
crowd of women. She'll amuse them, and gather glory for herself. But I'm
not going to have her encouraged to think we belong to her. We've set the
woman on her feet by what we've done. Now let her learn to stand alone."

The ladies' luncheon was a direct consequence of this speech; but
complete as was the Countess's success, Annesley felt that she was not
satisfied: that it would take more than a luncheon party of which she was
the heroine to content the Countess, now that Nelson Smith and his bride
had a house and a circle in London.

Occasionally, when she was giving an "At Home," or a dinner, Annesley
consulted Knight. "Shall we ask the Countess?" was her query, and the
first time she did this he answered with another question: "Do you want
her for your own pleasure? Do you like her better than you did?"

Annesley had to say "no" to this catechizing, whereupon Knight briefly
disposed of the subject. "That settles it. We won't have her."

And so, during the next few weeks, the Countess de Santiago (who had
moved from the Savoy Hotel into a charming, furnished flat in Cadogan
Gardens) came to Portman Square only for one luncheon and two or three
receptions.

By this time, however, she had made friends of her own, and if she had
cared to accept a professional status she might have raked in a small
fortune from her seances. She would not take money, however, preferring
social recognition; but gifts were pressed upon her by those who, though
grateful and admiring, did not care for the obligation to admit the
Countess into their intimacy.

She took the ri