estless youth finds something so much harder to wear than sedate
middle age. The admiration grew in his eyes. She was charming.

The lips broke away at last.

"After all," she murmured, "I think that I shall enjoy myself this
evening. You are looking all sorts of nice things at me."

"My eyes," he answered, "are more daring than my lips."

"And you call yourself a lawyer?"

"Is that a challenge? Well, I was thinking that you looked charming."

"Is that all? I have a looking-glass, you know."

"And I shall miss you--very much."

She suddenly avoided his eyes, but it was for a second only. Yet Brooks
was himself conscious of the significance of that second. He set his
teeth hard.

"The days here," he said, slowly, "have been very pleasant. It has all
been--such a different life for me. A few months ago I knew no one
except a few of the Medchester people, and was working hard to make a
modest living. Sometimes I feel here as though I were a modern Aladdin.
There is a sense of unreality about Lord Arranmore's extraordinary
kindness to me. To-night, more than ever, I cannot help feeling that it
is something like a dream which may pass away at any moment."

She looked at him thoughtfully.

"Lord Arranmore is not an impulsive person," she said. "He must have
had some reason for being so decent to you."

"Yes, as regards the management of his affairs perhaps," Brooks
answered. "But why he should ask me here, and treat me as though I were
his social equal and all that sort of thing--well, you know that is a
puzzle, isn't it?"

"Well, I don't know," she answered. "Lord Arranmore is not exactly the
man to be a slave to, or even to respect, the conventional, and your
being--what you are, naturally makes you a pleasant companion to
him--and his guests. No, I don't think that it is strange."

"You are very flattering," he said, smiling.

"Not in the least," she assured him. "Now-a-days birth seems to be
rather a handicap than otherwise to the making of the right sort of
people. I am sure there are more impossibilities in the peerage than in
the nouveaux riches. I know heaps of people who because their names are
in Debrett seem to think that manners are unnecessary, and that they
have a sort of God-sent title to gentility."

Brooks laughed.

"Why," he said, "you are more than half a Radical."

"It is your influence," she said, demurely.

"It will soon pass away," he sighed. "To-morrow you will be back again
amo