her despair, not knowing that she was expected to
do no more than stir the soil for the crop which Jean Briggerland would
plant and reap.

They went on to supper at one of the clubs, and Lydia thought with
amusement of poor old Jaggs, who apparently took his job very seriously
indeed.

Again her angle of vision had shifted, and her respect for the old man
had overcome any annoyance his uncouth presence brought to her.

As she alighted at the door of the club she looked round, half expecting
to see him. The club entrance was up a side street off Leicester Square,
an ill-lit thoroughfare which favoured Mr. Jaggs's retiring methods, but
there was no sign of him, and she did not wait in the drizzling night to
make any closer inspection.

Mrs. Cole-Mortimer had not disguised the possibility of Jean Briggerland
being at the club, and they found her with a gay party of young people,
sitting in one of the recesses. Jean made a place for the girl by her
side and introduced her to half a dozen people whose names Lydia did not
catch, and never afterwards remembered.

Mr. Marcus Stepney, however, that sleek, dark man, who bowed over her
hand and seemed as though he were going to kiss it, she had met before,
and her second impression of him was even less favourable than the
first.

"Do you dance?" asked Jean.

A jazz band was playing an infectious two-step. At the girl's nod Jean
beckoned one of her party, a tall, handsome boy who throughout the
subsequent dance babbled into Lydia's ear an incessant paean in praise of
Jean Briggerland.

Lydia was amused.

"Of course she is very beautiful," she said in answer to the
interminable repetition of his question. "I think she's lovely."

"That's what I say," said the young man, whom she discovered was Lord
Stoker. "The most amazingly beautiful creature on the earth, I think."

"Of course you're awfully good-looking, too," he blundered, and Lydia
laughed aloud.

"But she's got enemies," said the young man viciously, "and if ever I
meet that infernal cad, Glover, he'll be sorry."

The smile left Lydia's face.

"Mr. Glover is a friend of mine," she said a little quickly.

"Sorry," he mumbled, "but----"

"Does Miss Briggerland say he is so very bad?"

"Of course not. She never says a word against him really." His lordship
hastened to exonerate his idol. "She just says she doesn't know how long
she's going to stand his persecutions. It breaks one's heart to see how
sad thi